[FFML] [HP] [XOVER] Drunkard's Walk VIII, Chapter 2

[Bob Schroeck]

My muse seems to be hanging around -- in just under two months,
the next chapter of Drunkard's Walk VIII.  Enjoy.

-- Bob

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Bob Schroeck         http://www.accessdenied-rms.net        rms at eclipse.net
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the
chapter.




                       DRUNKARD'S WALK VIII:
             HARRY POTTER AND THE MAN FROM OTHEREARTH

                       by Robert M. Schroeck





2.  Seeing The Magic Kingdom On Two Hundred Galleons A Day


There's no such thing as a wizard who minds his own business.
-- Berengis the Black, in "Dog Wizard" by Barbara Hambly

Magic is simply the art of getting results.
-- "Michael", quoted by Margot Adler in "Drawing Down The Moon"

Chaos is King, and Magic is loose in the world!
-- Robert A. Heinlein, "Waldo"



12 Grimmauld Place, Friday, August 13, 1995, 7:07 AM

My excursion to Diagon Alley the next morning began with a jet of
cold water, courtesy of Charlie.  He got a head start on his
escape while I dug my way out of the mass of wet, swaddling
sheets I was caught in, but I beat him to the ground floor with
some judicious gymnastics.  In the process I startled the girl
with the frizzy hair -- Hermia, Helena, some Shakespearean name --
who clearly wasn't expecting a soaking wet blond American wearing
only pajama shorts to come hurtling down the staircase face-first
that early in the morning.  I redirected myself around her with a
grab-and-pivot that took me over the railing -- and just
coincidentally right onto the fleeing Charlie's shoulders.

I hit him square and bore him down to the ground, grabbing his
wand and tossing it to the girl in the process.  (She caught it
more or less automatically while staring with large, somewhat
stunned-looking eyes.)  Then I proceeded to noogie him until
Molly stuck her head out of the kitchen and coughed
portentously at us.  I looked up.

"Good morning, Molly!" I sang out enthusiastically, while
continuing to noogie a struggling Charlie.

"M'm?" Charlie garbled into the carpet at the bottom of the
stairwell.  "W'r?"

Molly drew a deep breath, but then paused as if uncertain.  I
took advantage of the moment.

"Charlie was a bit impolite this morning," I explained brightly.
"I hope you don't mind if I discipline him."

Charlie bellowed something into the carpet that I'm sure would
have gotten his mouth washed out with soap if it had had more
vowels among its consonants.

Molly opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again, shut it again,
then turned around and went back down into the kitchen.

                               * * *

Half an hour later I was washed, dressed and -- most importantly
from a nutritional standpoint -- freshly breakfasted.  I was also
wondering about the wall full of shrunken heads -- some variety
of fae, I gathered from the ears and the facial features -- that
I had noticed hanging over the first landing.  Again with the
creepy.

Charlie was clearly disgruntled, although less because of our
little altercation -- it wasn't our first by a long shot, and
neither of us held any grudges over them -- and more because Bill
was still chuckling over it.

Bill's earring, I finally noticed this morning, was some manner
of fang -- genuine, not a metal bauble.  That plus the way he
affected an outfit clearly modeled on non-magical tastes (leather
jacket, trousers, and T-shirt instead of robes), along with the
ponytail, gave him a bit of a rakish air.  He was taller and
leaner than his brother, lending the two of them a bit of a
Mutt-and-Jeff look when they stood next to each other.

It took another fifteen minutes to negotiate a peace between the
brothers, and then the three of us took the Floo to the Leaky
Cauldron -- yes, the place where the Headmaster had interviewed
me.  Charlie had neglected to tell me that the entrance to Diagon
Alley was in its back yard.

It was, as it turned out, behind an enchanted brick wall that
acted as the gateway.  Charlie indicated a specific brick in the
wall that one had to tap with a wand before it would open and
admit you to the Alley ("Three up," he said, "and two across").

I resisted the urge to make a Pink Floyd joke that only I would
get.

"Give it a try, Doug," Charlie then said with a smirk.  Bastard.
He *knew* I didn't have a wand yet.  He just wanted to embarrass
me in revenge for the noogie-ing.  I mustered what little dignity
I possessed and poked the brick -- once with my fingertip and
once with the Toothpick still in its collapsed form.  My finger
didn't do a thing, to absolutely no one's surprise, but the
Toothpick *did* -- the wall obediently opened and, chuckling at
the brothers' surprised looks (especially Charlie's), I
stepped through.

...And into a leftover set from a film adaptation of a Dickens
novel.  From where we stood I could see what was effectively the
High Street of an entire neighborhood, with several smaller ways
branching off of it.  *This* was in the heart of London?  I could
only imagine they had some kind of illusion hiding it, because at
the very least it should have shown up on aerial and satellite
photographs.  Or maybe it was in a pocket dimension, and only
*seemed* to be in London...

I never did find out one way or another.

As far as the eye could see, there were one- and two-story
buildings in a variety of architectural styles ranging from
thatch-roofed wattle-and-daub to half-timbered Tudor, with the
occasional intrusion of early Victorian (positively gaudy by
comparison to their neighbors) here and there.  Almost all of
them had big, broad front windows -- some flat, some bay, all
displaying wares -- and colorful signs hanging over their doors.

The street itself was cobblestoned, though it was hard to see
that at first because of the throng of wizardkind swirling around
us.  While robes were the predominant fashion statement, there
was about the same proportion of wildly different outfits among
them as I'd seen at the Ministry.

A gentle breeze was blowing, carrying to me the scent of Diagon.
The air was redolent with more odors than I could put name to --
some sharp and medicinal, some herbal or flowery, and every once
in a while, some that were clearly cooking food, mostly meats.
To my surprise the miasma of human sweat and accumulated dirt was
nowhere to be found, despite the already-oppressive heat of the
day; then it occurred to me that if the Weasleys were at all
typical of Wizarding families, wizards as a whole were likely far
cleaner than their medieval appearances would suggest.

As Bill and Charlie stepped up to either side of me, I could hear
the grinding noise of the brick wall behind us closing back up.
"So," Charlie said.  "Where first?"

"Money," I replied.  "Can't buy anything without cash."  I dug in
my pocket for the key I'd received in lieu of a first paycheck
from the dragon preserve.  (Or *any* paycheck, for that matter.)

"Gringotts," Bill said with a broad smile, and I *knew* he was
thinking of seeing his girlfriend.

Gringotts, it turned out, was the only stone building I saw
during my entire time on the Alley.  White marble, in fact, with
big silver doors that had an entertaining threat engraved on them
to warn off thieves.  Its staff was made up entirely of
non-humans -- one of the species I couldn't identify in that
tacky statue at the Ministry.

Well, not *entirely* non-humans, given Bill and his girlfriend
worked for them.  But the public face of the bank was exclusively
made up of short, sallow-skinned humanoids with solid black eyes
and long, sharp features.  Oh, and bad attitudes.

These, I found out from Charlie as I waited in line, were the
goblins he had mentioned the night before.  They didn't look like
any variety of goblins I was familiar with, but hey, different
universe.

Once I got to a teller's window, making a withdrawal was simple
enough:  present key, ask for the desired quantity, endure a
small amount of veiled insult, and get a bag of solid gold
hubcaps in return.

I resolved to do all my future banking by mail.

Bill had vanished almost as soon as we were inside -- no points
for guessing where he'd run off to.  It *had* to be young love in
bloom if he couldn't wait to see this girl of his until after
lunch when he went back to work.  I could only hope she felt as
strongly about him.
  
And maybe she did, because as I left the teller's window, I
spotted Bill emerging from a door marked "Employees Only" with a
very attractive young woman on his arm.  He spied Charlie and me
and waved to get our attention.  As the two of us crossed the
bank lobby to join him, I studied the girl -- platinum-blonde
hair, rich-looking robes (I have no idea what constitutes
"fashionable" for normal clothes, so don't ask me about robes),
very nice legs (what I could see under the robes' hem), and as I
got close enough, yes, definitely supermodel-level beauty there.
Bill had clearly lucked out, at least in the looks category.

When we got within a couple meters, Bill said, "Fleur, I'd like
you to meet my brother Charlie, and Doug, a friend and co-worker
of his.  Guys, this is Fleur Delacour."

"I am pleazed to meet you both," she said with a strongish
accent, holding out her hand.  Ah, she was French.  Well then, in
that case the robes were probably *very* fashionable.

"Mon plaisir, Mademoiselle Delacour," I said, bowing over her
hand to kiss it.  Hey, first chance in 48 hours to *not* shake a
new acquaintance's hand, I was taking it.  When I straightened up
she was giving me a funny look, as though she were a bit confused
by something, but then she smiled brightly.

And then I elbowed Charlie, who was standing there drooling, just
like Ron had the day before at the simple mention of Fleur.  He
started, and for the first time in the weeks I'd known him, Mr.
Smooth stumbled over simply saying "hello".  Having seen him pick
up girls with just a smile and a clever line, this was very out
of character for him.

And then Bill, who himself was suddenly a little glassy-eyed,
muttered, "Fleur, turn it down.  You're affecting the customers."

"Oh," she said, "I am sorry."  I looked around, and, yeah,
Charlie wasn't the only one drooling.  We had become the center
of attention for just about every male within four or five
meters.

And then we weren't, and Charlie was back to normal.  "What the
hell," I asked conversationally, "was *that*?"

Fleur blushed and looked away.  "I am one-quarter Vila.  It gives
me ze effect on men eef I do not control eet."

*Hmm,* I thought upon hearing that.  *Aren't Vila some kind of
Slavic nymph?  Interesting...*

Bill looked equally abashed.  "I wanted to prank Charlie, but..."

"I overdeed eet," Fleur finished.  She studied me curiously.
"Eet is very strange zat you were not affected, m'sieu Doug."

I smiled, not unkindly.  "I'm a happily married man.  It takes a
lot more than a pretty face and a magical aura to sway me."

Oddly, that seemed to reassure her.

                               * * *

12 Grimmauld Place, London, England, UK, Friday, August 13, 1995,
9:19 AM

It was the perfect opportunity -- Professor Sangnoir was out at
Diagon Alley with Bill and Charlie.  Mr. Weasley was at work.
Mrs. Weasley, not trusting the matter to Kreacher, had left
fifteen minutes earlier to do some shopping for the next few
days' meals.  And they had finished cleaning the room left in
their care when she'd departed.

Time to sate her curiosity.

As the other teens collapsed into a well-earned rest, Hermione
excused herself and slipped down the rear staircase of the Black
home and out into the yard.  There, parked under the overhang of
the porch roof, was Professor Sangnoir's motorcycle.

The professor was an enigma, and Hermione did *not* like enigmas.
He simply did not add up properly, and that annoyed her.  A
wizard without a wand, who seemed more Muggle than magical
(more so even than poor Harry, who'd had no idea the Wizarding
World existed until his eleventh birthday), he was still skilled
enough, at least on paper, to get hired as a professor at one of
the most prestigious schools of magic in Europe.  It struck her
as all but impossible.  To complicate matters, the professor was
clearly far more comfortable with technology than the typical
wizard, and unlike Mr. Weasley, he actually knew what he was on
about when it came to electronics, computers and other modern
devices, if that helmet of his was any indication.

And now, driven by something she didn't quite understand yet, she
had come down to study his motorcycle.  Resting up against the
edge of the porch as it was, Hermione couldn't circle it
completely as she'd've liked, but she did walk in a careful semi-
circle around all its open sides, shaking her head.

It wasn't new, that was obvious.  Its flames-on-black finish,
though beautiful and glossy in the morning sun, had dust on it, a
scratch or two, and the occasional chip from stones kicked up off
the road.  The tyres were worn, with mud caked here and there
still on the sidewalls.  The saddle had several bare spots where
heavy usage had rubbed the smooth finish completely away to
reveal raw leather; the padding underneath it had molded itself
to the shape of its rider through many, many long miles.  The
plastic of the cargo carriers was scuffed and stained here and
there; one "stain" looked more like a scorch such as would be
left by a jet of flame.

At the same time, it couldn't possibly be *old*.  No one would
ever call her a fan of motorcycles, but even she knew that
nothing on the market looked like this, had *ever* looked like
this -- all cowls and fairings and huge, fat tyres on single arms
instead of forks, long and low and... *sleek* was the only word
that came to mind.  But still muscular, somehow.  It seemed to
have a jet fighter somewhere in its DNA, and maybe a Japanese
bullet train, too.

It was the engine that cinched it.  Even without being a fan of
motorcycles, Hermione knew what their engines should look like --
chromed blocks with cylinders housing pistons; carburators and
spark plugs and control cables sticking out of them; spinning
gears driving loops of chain; grease and petrol and rubber.  Not
a miniature jet engine out of which grew a drive shaft that shot
straight back to the rear wheel, gleaming black on the outside
but a pale beige ceramic on the inside.

If the science magazines Hermione read at the start of each
summer were to be trusted, *no one* knew how to make a ceramic
that would stand up to the heat and stress of simple internal
combustion, let alone jet engine temperatures and pressures.  Not
yet, anyway.  And *no one* was making motorcycles with jet
engines.  At all.  Let alone jet engines made out of ceramics
that didn't exist.

Like the professor himself, it was an anomaly.  It didn't belong.

Thus, the fact that there was no manufacturer's logo anywhere on
it came as no surprise.  The only mark of any kind that she could
find was a delicately enameled badge on the pivoting arm that
supported the front wheel.  It was no bigger than a Sickle coin,
and round like one, too; on a chrome background it depicted what
looked like a red and white croquet mallet.  Hermione raised an
eyebrow at that, wondering what it might denote.

Standing up, she leaned in closer to the motorcycle to study its
dashboard.  If this were a Wizarding-built bike -- if such a
thing were possible -- she would expect to see controls that were
cryptic and more symbolic than practical.  But though it was
indeed cryptic -- the tall, broad panel was seamed and hinged
like it might unfold or move around -- its instrumentation was
very mundane.  Banks of unlabeled switches, some under plastic
covers; dials and readouts and even a small liquid crystal
display screen with a tiny keyboard under it!  And in the center
of it all, a big red button marked "SCRAM".

She had leaned in to study the panel more closely when the LCD
panel lit up and an obviously synthesised voice said, in an
American accent, "Step away from the motorcycle."  She froze in
surprise, and looked at the now-active screen.  It read, "Anti-
theft system active.  Response level: 1."  The voice continued,
"You have five seconds to comply.  Please step away from the
motorcycle."

Hermione was still paralysed when a pair of hands clamped around
her upper arms and yanked her back suddenly.

"You don't want to do that, Hermione," George Weasley said in her
ear.  She glanced about to see the twins on either side of her,
each with a hand on her arm.  As they released their grip, Fred
added, "If you don't get away fast enough, it'll shock you.
Doesn't do any permanent damage..."

"We think," George interjected.

Fred nodded, then continued, "...but it hurts like the dickens."
He shuddered.  "Trust us."

"Thanks," Hermione breathed, her eyes wide.

"So, what did you find out?" Fred asked, his tone suddenly
merrier.  "Anything?"

She shook her head.  "It looks completely Muggle, but no one in
the Muggle world makes motorcycles like that.  No one *can* --
it's impossible!"  She looked from one to the other.  "What about
you?  You must have been trying everything you could think of."

George nodded.  "And then some.  But it all comes out the same --
no magic at all."

"Not even the trace magic that we'd expect it to have from simply
being in the possession of a wizard," Fred added slyly.  "Not
even *background* magic."

Hermione's eyes widened again at the implications.  "But *that's*
impossible, too."

Fred and George suddenly grinned.  "Yes, it is, isn't it?" Fred
said.

"But that means..." she began.  "That means..."

"That means," George finished with a smile, "that the Defense
professor is even *more* interesting than we thought."

"Oh," Fred added after a moment, his eyes gleaming with mischief.
"Did we tell you it flies, too?"

"It what?" Hermione demanded.

                               * * *

Diagon Alley, London, England, UK, Friday, August 13, 1995, 9:40
AM

Well, the next stop after we said goodbye to Bill's lady friend
was the main bookstore on the Alley -- "Flourish and Blott's",
whose mental misspelling from the previous evening I corrected
upon seeing their sign.

While the building looked no bigger than a typical gift shop from
the outside, inside it was huge -- easily the size of a mundane
"big box" mega-bookstore, with seemingly endless stacks.  Nice
trick.  The textbooks were on display in the center of the floor
near the front door, which was certainly sensible, and I made a
beeline for them as soon as I'd spotted the displays.

Acquiring a set of the standard defense textbooks was easy --
they were literally dumped into bins, which were lined up in a
row from first to seventh year.  I just walked along the row and
snagged a book as I passed each one, starting with "The Dark
Forces:  A Guide to Self-Protection" by Quentin Trimble for the
first year classes and ending with "Advanced Topics in Animation,
Conjuration and Invocation" by Crispin Gillespie-Barnes for the
seventh-years.  I took these to the counter and informed the
clerk I was assembling a large purchase, before heading back for
the *non*-standard texts.

As it turned out, finding Remus's suggestions was a little
harder.  I had expected this -- they *weren't* on the usual
curriculum, after all -- so, list in hand, I dove into the
stacks to begin my search.  I was lucky at first -- I found
"Offense Against the Dark Arts:  A Survey of Proactive Self-
Defense" by Gilly Mullins right away, and the rather irreverently
titled "Hit Them First, Hit Them Hard, Keep Them Down" by Metien
la Unuabato.  But after that I started striking out -- book after
book on Remus's list was either sold out or simply not stocked.

I sighed as I stepped around a remainders table holding a hundred
or so copies of "Defensive Magical Theory" by someone with the
amusing name of Wilbert Slinkhard, marked down to 10% of cover
price.  (And deservedly so, I decided after quickly skimming a
copy -- how someone could stretch "call the cops, surrender or
hide" into 350 pages *and* call it a reasonable approach to the
topic was beyond me.)

Half an hour's search had turned up only two more of Remus's
recommendations:  Benjamin Hoddypeak's "Practical Defensive Magic
and Its Use Against the Dark Arts" and "Dark Lords, 1750 to 1981:
An Analysis of Goals, Tactics, and Weaknesses" by Hereford
Lichtsohn.  Taking my few finds back to the counter, I stacked
them with the other books.

"Did you find everything you were looking for?" the clerk asked
as he began totaling up the bill on a scrap of parchment using a
quill pen.

"Actually, no."  I glanced down at the list still in my hand.
"Would it be possible to order the books I couldn't find?"

Still doing up the sum, the clerk nodded.  "Oh, certainly.  We
take payment in advance, and the books will be here for you,
um..."  And here he looked up at a ticking clock on the wall
next to the shop door.  "'S still morning, so they'll be here for
you tomorrow afternoon at the latest."

Nodding approvingly, I placed the order and made a mental note to
come back the next day.  As I paid, Charlie and Bill reappeared
at my side.  Bill shrank my purchases, now wrapped in brown paper
and string, and I slipped them into the sleeve of my robes.

Charlie handed me another shrunken package.  "Here, picked this
up for you at the stationer's while you were busy here."

The miniature bundle was another all-but-anonymous plain brown
wrapper.  "What is it?" I asked.

"A ream of blank parchment, a dozen quills, a few bottles of ink,
a blotter and a pen-knife," Bill offered.  "Three bottles of
black, two of red."  As I slipped it into my other sleeve, Bill
added, "Charlie figured you needed some."

"I do.  Did.  Thanks."  I looked up and down the street to either
side.  "Where to next?"

Next turned out to be a shop immediately adjacent to Flourish and
Blott's, "Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions", wherein I
selected and was fitted for an entire wizarding wardrobe suitable
for an up-and-coming young academic.  And the less I have to say
about *that* process, the better.  In any case, like the books I
ordered, my robes and accessories would be waiting for me on the
morrow.

 From there we proceeded more or less at random, although we did
have an ultimate goal, the last must-visit shop on the itinerary.
Along the way I sampled the wares of three or four pushcart
vendors selling everything from animated sweets to marinated
grilled meats.  I poked my head into an ice cream parlor which
looked like it had been transplanted directly from Main Street,
U.S.A. in Disneyland.  We browsed several of the smaller shops --
an apothecary, a pet shop specializing in owls (and I must say I
was tempted, as there were some very handsome birds for sale), a
second bookstore (even less well-stocked than the first), and
a... well, "junk shop" was the only term that did it justice
(wherein Charlie and Bill spent an energetic twenty minutes
digging through random kipple in search of gods-know-what, simply
for the fun of it).  Just to name a few.

Finally, we stood before the door of Ollivander's Wands --
"Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.", or so the peeling sign
out front claimed.  Not that I believed it.

I needed a wand.  There was no disputing that.  Having a wand
would be proof I was a wizard and could actually teach at
Hogwarts.  It didn't matter that I was more powerful and more
versatile than just about *any* wizard I'd met so far in this
world except perhaps Headmaster Dumbledore -- in this society, a
wand meant you were a *real person* and not a magical creature --
or worse, a *muggle*.  It was a declaration of citizenship and a
high school diploma and a teaching certification all rolled up in
a magic stick, or so I'd gathered from the people around me.

Well, I've never had a reputation for dithering, so despite my
doubts and concerns, I stepped up to the door of Ollivander's,
yanked it open, and strode in, followed by Charlie and Bill.

Two hours later, I walked out again with nothing more than I had
entered with.

Let me start again.  I entered the shop -- a narrow, down-at-the-
heels establishment that did not look at all like I expected the
premiere (indeed, just about the *only*, as far as I could tell)
wand shop in Wizarding Britain to appear.  Like so many wizarding
buildings, it was dimly lit.  (And why *is* that, when every
witch and wizard can cast light spells?)  A counter divided the
small room roughly in half, and a threadbare curtain hid the
entrance to a back room.

Every square inch of the walls, save for the doors and front
window, was covered with shelves which held hundreds, maybe
thousands, of long, narrow rectangular boxes.  If I were a
betting man, I'd pony up a dime on the chance that each held a
wand.

Ollivander himself -- an old-seeming man who was painted entirely
in shades of grey and silver -- appeared after a moment, drifting
out of the back room.  He immediately greeted Bill and Charlie by
name, rattling off the details of their wands like a baseball fan
reciting a beloved player's statistics.  Then he turned his flat,
silver, fish-like eyes of his on me and said, "I am afraid I do
not know you, sir."

Since he didn't seem inclined to shake hands, I gave thanks and
kept mine to myself.  "Douglas Sangnoir.  I'm an American
muggleborn."  I gave him a winning smile.  "In case it's not
obvious, I need a wand."

His expression didn't change.  "Which is your wand hand?"

Okay, straight to business.  I can cope.  "I'm ambidextrous, but
I prefer to write with my right hand."

He nodded, his expression still changing not a whit, then made a
gesture which apparently was the signal for a measuring tape to
animate itself.  The tape leapt up off the counter and began
determining just about all the dimensions and relations of my
various body parts regardless of apparent relevance (inseam?
*really*?) while the grey man disappeared back through the
curtain.

He returned a few moments later, his arms filled with a selection
of long, narrow rectangular boxes.  "That's enough of that," he
said to no one in particular, but the tape measure suddenly
snapped itself shut and threw itself back on the counter as he
gently lay his burden there.  Reaching seemingly at random into
the pile he'd made, Ollivander drew out a box, which he opened,
revealing a wand.  "Maple, with a hair from the tail of an
Abraxan.  Twelve inches, a bit stiff, good for hexes and curses."
He held it out to me.  "Give it a wave."

I took it from him and immediately felt a strong dislike.  Not
mine, from the *wand*.  It didn't move, but it felt like it
wanted to get away from me.  Have you ever held a piece of iron
in a strong magnetic field, and felt it tug in your grip?  That's
what this was like, except it wasn't so much physical as, well,
emotional.

As soon as I'd registered the sensation, Ollivander said "no, no,
that's not it" and snatched the wand from my hand.  It went back
in the box and box under the counter, and then he pulled out
another.  "Oak and dragon scale.  Sixteen inches.  Unyielding.
Best for charms and transfiguration."

This one liked me even less than the first.  It actually tried to
get away from me when I reached for it.  It took a little time
to finally pin it down and get it in my hand, but before I could
even feel it out, Ollivander grabbed it away from me.  "No, no,
no, not right at all."  He gave me another fish-eyed look.  "You
are quite the challenge, Mr. Sangnoir."

I just shrugged and said nothing.

He pulled out a third.  "Blue spruce and crystallised manticore
venom, thirteen inches, supple.  Good for..."  I never did find
out what it was good for, because I was already reaching for it
as he started describing it, and damned if the wand didn't leap
right out of his hand before I could touch it.  He hadn't dropped
it, the thing shot out of his grip like a watermelon seed pinched
between a thumb and forefinger, and clattered to the floor.

"Merlin!" Bill swore behind me.  Ollivander just gave me a
blank but somehow baleful look as he bent down to recover it.

Standing up again, he held it out to me once more and the same
thing happened -- the wand literally shot out of his hand to get
away from me.  He made a sudden grab for it with his free hand
and caught it before it hit the floor again.  Scowling -- the
first real expression I saw on his face -- he returned it to its
box, before turning a more placid gaze to me.  "The wand chooses
the wielder, Mr. Sangnoir, but it would appear that these wands
do not wish to have anything to do with you."  He made a very
faint noise that might have been a sigh.  "This may take us a
while, but I guarantee we will find a wand that fits you."

Well, it took the rest of the morning before he gave up on
finding me a wand already made and in his stock.  After the first
twenty minutes I shooed Bill and Charlie out into the Alley.
"Go do brotherly stuff together," I told them as I pushed them
bodily through the shop's door.  "You don't need to stand here
and watch me."  Then I turned back to Ollivander, who seemed
determined to find a wand that would just stay in my hand, forget
about "matching" me.

The process was exquisitely boring and my overall level of
annoyance with it slowly built as failure followed failure.
Ollivander didn't notice -- or pretended not to -- and wouldn't
give up until he had convinced himself that no wand in his shop
wanted anything to do with me.  He began muttering about crafting
a wand specifically for me, saying things about "exotic woods"
and "rare cores" half under his breath.

I reached out and grabbed his shoulder before he could vanish
again into his back room.  "Hold on," I said, clamping down on
my severely-frayed temper.  "This is ridiculous.  If no wand will
work for me, then no wand will work for me, and I doubt creating
one from scratch will make any difference."  I grimaced at the
thought of showing up at Hogwarts without a wand, but if I had to
I would.  "Besides," I said as I released my grip on his
shoulder, "it's not like I ever needed a wand for my magic
before."

This got me a raised eyebrow.  "No?"

"Oh, no, never.  In fact, the closest thing to a wand I've ever
owned is this."  I dug God's Toothpick back out from the depths
of my sleeve and expanded it with that cracking-wood sound it
makes when it changes between pocket-size and its full two-meter
length.  "And I don't use it for spell-casting anyway."

Ollivander's eyes grew wide.  "May I... may I examine that,
please?"

I shrugged.  "Sure."  I handed it to him, still full-size,
saying to it, "Now you behave.  He's not trying to take you from
me, he just wants to look at you."  This got me a raised eyebrow
from the wand maker, but since he didn't get electrocuted or
anything, I didn't care.

"If you'll excuse me for a moment," Ollivander said as he stared
at the Toothpick almost reverently, then vanished through the
curtain into the back room again.

I wasn't concerned.  Even if he tried to steal the Toothpick, it
wouldn't work -- all I had to do was call for it, and it would
come to my hand.  By flight, not by teleport, which could get
messy if my call were urgent -- it tended to prefer straight-
line paths in such cases and was perfectly capable of punching
through stone, armor, flesh and just about anything else not of
Celestial origin in the process.  (If my need weren't immediate,
though, it could and would come to my hand via a more circuitous
-- and less destructive -- path.)

Either way, if (as unlikely as it seemed) Ollivander was inclined
to abscond with the Toothpick, he wouldn't be keeping it long.

He spent about ten minutes behind the curtain.  He muttered to
himself the whole time, too low for me to make out the words, and
every once in a while there was a rattle or clatter, as if he
were digging through a drawer or toolbox for something.  Finally
he made an alarmed-sounding yelp, and all the noises stopped,
except for the sound of him moving about back there.  "Mr.
Ollivander?" I called out, slightly worried at the sound of his
cry.

He reappeared, flinging the curtain aside and stepping through
with the Toothpick in his grip.  He stalked around the counter
and thrust it into my hands.  "Take this and leave my shop."

Reflexively, I collapsed the Toothpick and shoved it into the
sleeve of my robe again.  "What?"

"You cannot use a wand.  No wand will dare intrude on the bond
you have with that... staff," he all but snarled.  "Its
connection to you is so intimate as to be almost obscene.  Where
did you find it?"

I blinked.  "A god gave it to me," I blurted with complete
honesty and without thinking.

He looked to the side contemplatively, without losing any of his
pique.  "It is unique, then?"

I nodded.  "So I was assured."  I decided *not* to tell him that
while it was the only one of its particular kind, it had been the
scale-model prototype for some much *larger* Celestial weapons.

"Good," he snapped back.  "Then I do not need to warn any of my
customers against other devices of that ilk."  He turned his back
on me and retreated behind the counter.  "Good *day*, sir!"

Seeing as that was going to be that, I shrugged and left the
shop.

I found Charlie sitting alone on a bench outside.  "Hey," I said.

"Hey," he said back.  "So, what'd you end up with?"

"Nothing," I replied, dropping onto the bench next to him.
"Because of my connection to the Toothpick, no wand wants to get
near me."

"Really?  Well, that sucks rocks," Charlie said.

"Yeah.  So," I looked up and down the Alley, which was a little
less populous than it had been when I'd entered Ollivander's.
"Where's Bill?"

Charlie chuckled.  "He ran out of morning and had to get back to
work."

"Ran out of...?  Oh, geeze, is it noon already?"

"A little after."  He stood and then yanked me to my feet.
"C'mon, let's go to the Cauldron.  My treat."

"Um, *no*," I said, following after him as he began striding off
down the alley.  "I remember what happened the last time you
offered to pick up the tab at a pub."

"Relax," Charlie called back over his shoulder.  "There won't be
any trolls in the Cauldron.  I swear."

                               * * *

After a slightly late lunch we Floo'ed back to 12 Grimmauld -- it
was getting easier for me to enter the Floo with each use -- and
decamped in the kitchen with a couple cold bottles of butterbeer.
(I discovered I was already developing quite a taste for the
stuff, but then I'd always had a weakness for butterscotch,
particularly butterscotch pudding.)  My purchases had been dumped
in my room, with the books unshrunk and everything else left
pocket-sized.

Wanting neither to advertise the Toothpick nor badmouth a local,
I chose not to discuss my time in Ollivander's shop while we ate
at the Leaky Cauldron.  But now, back in the privacy of Grim Old
Number 12, I dumped my confusion and annoyance and, yes, a bit of
fear for my new employment all on Charlie.  He said nothing
through most of it, limiting himself to vaguely affirmative and
"please go on" noises until I started running out of steam.

"You're over-thinking this, Doug," he said, taking a pull on his
butterbeer.  "You don't need a wand to prove anything to anybody.
The stuff I've seen you do wandlessly -- you know half the crew
at the preserve swear that you must be Merlin reborn?  And not
just when they're pissed?"

"Half the crew at the preserve are idiots," I grumbled, and
Charlie laughed.

"Well, yeah, but that's not the point!"  He gestured broadly with
his bottle.  "The point is, who cares that no wand at
Ollivander's will have anything to do with you?  Do the lightning
thing, or the hurricane thing, or, or, or the *other* thing, and
no one will give you any shite.  Merlin's bloody beard, magic
*without* a wand is the mark of a powerful wizard.  All you have
to do is tell them you're just so powerful you *can't* use a
wand."

I snorted.  "Wouldn't be far from the truth, Charlie.  Compared
to the mages back home, your people are pretty underpowered.
Compared to *me*, too, even though by home's standards *I'm*
practically a cripple."  Well, that was exaggerating the case a
bit, but still, there were mages and archmages who looked down on
me as having the magical equivalent of Tourette Syndrome.
(Usually the same ones who got mil-spec migraines around me.)

Charlie laughed and hoisted his butterbeer.  "Well, here's to the
most powerful cripple in the whole damned Wizarding World!"

I couldn't help it -- I laughed, too, and clinked my bottle
against his.  "Hear, hear!"

"Did we hear you right, Professor?"  A Weasley twin seemed almost
to materialize out of nowhere.  "You can't use an Ollivander
wand?"

"Perhaps we can be of assistance," said the other, appearing just
as suddenly.  He drew from his sleeve a long, slender, sculpted
stick -- a wand not unlike any of the hundreds that Ollivander
had tried to force on me.

I looked at Charlie, who just smiled and quirked an eyebrow at
me.  I looked back at the twins.  Despite knowing their
reputation, I was curious.  "Okay," I said, reaching for it.
"I'll bite."  Unlike Ollivander's wares, it did not attempt to
avoid me.  I was able to wrap my fingers around it and hold it
tightly, with no indication it was trying to escape my grasp.  I
nodded, then looked back up at the two.  "Well, either it likes
me, or it's a dud."

"Give it a try," Charlie said, with a bit more good cheer in his
voice than I liked.  Odds were, then, that this was some kind of
practical joke.

Oh, what the hell.  Might as well be a good sport.  "All right,
here goes."  I held up the wand, pointed it toward the ceiling,
and incanted, "*Lumos!*"

The wand writhed and expanded in my hand, turning into a rubber
chicken which I was holding by the legs.  As I started chuckling,
a marble-sized ball of light barely brighter than a candle flame
shot out of the open beak to hover in the air above me.

Well, whaddaya know.  I could cast spells the wizarding way.
Well, at least one spell.

When I stopped chuckling, I turned back to the twins, saying, "I
*like* it, boys.  How much do you want for it?"  Then I realized
they were wearing identical poleaxed expressions.

"Bloody hell!" one swore in a soft voice.

"It's only supposed to turn into a chicken," the other said.
"It's not supposed to be a *real* functioning wand, too."

"It's the latest model of the gag wands we're making for the joke
shop we'll be opening after we get out of Hogwarts," the first
explained.

"Well, either way it's damned fine work, you two," I said.  "I
mean it, I'll buy this off you.  Hey, Charlie," I asked as I dug
in my sleeve for my money bag.  "What's old Ollie usually charge
for one of his magic sticks?"

Charlie took a long, slow drink from his bottle.  "Mm.  Anywhere
between six and fifteen galleons, as I recall, depending on the
materials."

"Cool."  I laid the chicken on the table before me.  It promptly
turned back into a wand.  Smiling, I shook my head and opened up
the pouch.  "So, boys, what do you say, 30 galleons?  Fifteen for
the wand, fifteen for the chicken?"

"Deal!" they said in unison, and I dutifully counted out thirty
gold doubloons into their eager little hands.

"Now don't spend it all in one place," I joked.

"Oh, no," one said.

"We have *two* places we want to spend it," the other said.

"Well, good," I said, nodding approvingly.  "As long as you're
spending wisely."

"Who, us?"  Again in unison, with big toothy smiles.  They bowed,
and one said, "A pleasure doing business with you."

"Likewise."  I turned back to Charlie, then thought of one more
thing.  "Hey, guys, just out of curiosity, what's this wand made
of?"

They glanced at each other, grinned, then looked back at me.

"Balsa wood," one said, imitating Ollivander's monotone almost
exactly.  "Eleven inches, brittle..."

"...with an ear-hair from a house-elf for the core," concluded
the other.  "Good for transfiguring itself into a chicken."

"Among other things," I noted.  "Guys?  Thanks."

"You're welcome, Professor," they chorused.

"Hey.  Until September first, guys, you can call me Doug."

                               * * *

The British Ministry of Magic, London, UK.  Friday, August 13,
1995, 3:19 PM

"Cornelius, we have a problem."  Dolores Umbridge's sickly-sweet
voice preceded her pink-clad bulk into the office of the Minister
of Magic.  She really did bear an unfortunate resemblance to a
toad, Fudge thought, not for the first time, but she was *so*
terribly efficient, and so unswervingly loyal.

"What is it, Dolores?" he asked as she maneuvered her broad,
squat form around a pair of chairs and into position in front of
his desk.

Senior Undersecretary to the Minister Dolores Umbridge glanced at
the sheet of parchment in her pudgy fingers and frowned.  "I've
just gotten word that Dumbledore's found another potential
Defense professor.  A *Muggle-born*, yet," she added in a
disgusted tone.

"Drat!" Cornelius swore.  "I suppose it would be too much to hope
for that this one changes his mind like the others?  We *need* to
get you into Hogwarts to quash Dumbledore and Potter's sedition."

Dolores smiled -- a wide, false smile that only exacerbated her
toad-like appearance.  "I'll have one of my people talk to
this..."  She consulted the parchment again.  "...Douglas
Sangnoir and explain to him how it would be in Wizarding
Britain's best interests if he were to resign his position."

Cornelius nodded rapidly.  "Good, good, I'm sure the man will see
reason.  I leave it in your hands, then."  He returned to the
papers on his cluttered desk.  Umbridge watched him through
slitted eyes for a moment before slowly turning and navigating
her massive form back out of the office.

*And if he doesn't see reason,* Umbridge thought smugly as she
closed the office door behind her, *they will *make* him see
reason, or ensure he's never heard from again.*

                               * * *

12 Grimmauld Place, Friday, August 13, 1995, 4:11 PM

They hadn't intended to spy, not at all, but Ginny had noticed
Professor Sangnoir in the back yard as they'd worked on one of
the second-floor bedrooms.  He was in jeans and a T-shirt again
instead of robes, and it looked like he was... dancing?  She'd
brought this to Hermione's attention, and when the older girl had
joined her at the window, she said, "Oh, he's practicing martial
arts!"

This had then required that Hermione explain what martial arts
were to Ginny, who found the idea fascinating.  "Do you think
he'll be teaching us some?" she asked.

"I don't think so," Hermione replied absently as she watched
Professor Sangnoir's inhumanly graceful movements below.  "It's
the sort of thing that takes years and years to learn."

"Oh."  Ginny was silent for a moment.  "What's that on his
shirt?"

Hermione peered down at the yellow and red emblem which graced
the front of the professor's blue T-shirt.  "Oh, that's the
Superman symbol!"

Ginny turned to her quizzically.  "What's Superman?"

This question led to Hermione explaining to her, not entirely
successfully, Superman and the very concept of a superhero.  *At
least the Wizarding World has comic books,* Hermione thought, *so
I don't need to explain those.*  "Of course, it's all fiction,"
she concluded.  "Kind of like modern versions of the old Greek
myths."

"Mm-hmmm," Ginny acknowledged absently.  Throughout Hermione's
explanation, neither had *stopped* watching Professor Sangnoir's
practice.  "Oh, hey, Hermione, he's taking something out of that
holster you mentioned yesterday."

"What *is* it?"  Hermione peered intently.  "It looks almost
like..."

Ginny never found out what it looked almost like because at that
moment there was a sound like wood cracking, clearly audible even
through the glass on the second storey, and suddenly Professor
Sangnoir was holding a quarterstaff of a pale blond wood.

"Whoa," Ginny breathed, as Hermione murmured, "Oh, my."

"What's 'Oh, my'?"  Ron appeared behind them, followed by Harry.
"Oh wow!"

Down in the back yard below, Professor Sangnoir began to swing
the quarterstaff through what was obviously a mock combat.  As
the professor's movements slowly ramped up until the staff was
little more than a blond blur, Harry realised it wasn't unlike
the shadowboxing his cousin Dudley sometimes engaged in.  He
thought he could almost see the imaginary opponents that the
professor was fighting -- there, there he'd ducked under an
attack; there, that was his counterstrike, he'd knocked his
enemy off his feet with a sweep of the staff; and there, that...

Harry swallowed hard, then narrowed his eyes.  That *had* to have
been a killing blow -- a strike to the throat of a fallen foe
followed by a smash to the temple.  And the professor had not
hesitated for a moment to make it.

At the moment he realised that, the professor stepped back and
swung his arm out to his side with the staff held vertical.  With
a *crack*, the staff disappeared.

"Wicked!" Ron whispered, almost reverently.  Harry said nothing,
and just kept watching.  The professor still held something in
his right hand, Harry realised, and he slid it smoothly into the
oddly-shaped leather holster on his belt.  Then he walked over to
his motorcycle, opened one of the cases mounted over its rear
wheel, and reached in to withdraw...

"What's that?" Ginny asked.

"I think..." Hermione began, then stopped as the professor
stepped back and drew a length of gleaming steel from the black
lacquered sheath that had hidden it.  "It is!  It's a katana!"

"A what?" Ron asked, unable to tear his eyes from the sight
below.

"A samurai sword," Harry murmured.  "From Japan."  He'd once
caught a glimpse of a badly-dubbed Japanese movie that Dudley had
been watching one Sunday afternoon.  An Oriental man in strange
black armor had cut down dozens of enemies in seconds using a
sword just like the one in the professor's hands.

Like the staff before it, the professor's sword became little
more than a shining blur, at times moving so quickly that he
seemed to be surrounded by floating sheets of curved steel that
flickered in and out of existence around him.  Again Harry found
that he could almost see the opponents facing the professor,
could count each one as they fell to the all-but-invisible blade,
could see their blood spraying across the yard to paint bright
crimson arcs across the high stone walls that separated it from
the neighbors on each side.

And then, with a suddenness as shocking as his speed, he stopped.
The professor slid the sword through a cloth that appeared
between his thumb and forefinger -- *Wiping off the blood!* Harry
realised -- before inserting it, bare, into his belt, all with
one single graceful motion.

*This man is dangerous.*  The thought came to him unbidden.
Harry tore his gaze away from the back yard to look at his
friends beside him.  Their eyes were wide, and they were
breathing heavily, almost panting, as though they had taken part
in the activity they had just witnessed.  And so was he, he
realised belatedly.

"Bloody hell," Ron said after a moment.

"I think..." Harry started hoarsely, then stopped and licked his
dry lips.  "I think we may have a decent Defense professor this
year."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Ginny said offhandedly.  "He
doesn't seem all that impressive to me."

Harry stared at her disbelievingly until she began to giggle.
"Okay," she said, "maybe he is."

"Bloody hell," Ron repeated, and Hermione elbowed him.  "Ouch!
Dammit, Hermione..."

Hermione rolled her eyes, then turned her attention back to the
window.  "That was *amazing*," she said.  "I've never seen
*anyone* move like that, even with magic.  That's just not
humanly possible!"

"Well, obviously it is," Ron pointed out.  "We just saw it."

"Maybe he's one of those superheroes you were telling me about,"
Ginny offered, giggling again.

Hermione hmphed.  "Don't be silly."  Then she tilted her head.
"That's strange."

"What is?" Harry asked, following her gaze back to the yard
below and the professor, who was returning the sword, now back in
its black sheath, to the box on his motorcycle.

"He's not soaked with sweat," Hermione murmured, then looked back
up at them.  "His shirt's barely damp, his hair is just a little
mussed, and he's certainly not moving like he's just finished a
long workout.  That's... that's just not possible."  She shook
her head.  "And you know, that's not the only odd thing -- have
you noticed, ever since he got here, Mrs. Black's portrait hasn't
gotten upset *once*?  You'd think that when Charlie and Professor
Sangnoir arrived yesterday and we all piled into the front hall
it would have set her off, but there wasn't a peep out of her!
And he tackled Charlie practically in front of her this morning --
nothing!"

"And Kreacher's been hiding ever since he got here," Harry mused,
frowning.  "At least I haven't seen him hobbling about and
muttering in almost two days."

"So... what?" Ron asked.  "You think that means there's something
strange about Professor Sangnoir?"

"When *hasn't* there been something strange about a Defense
professor?" Ginny asked rhetorically.

"I guess," Harry said slowly, his brow furrowed, "the question is
whether it's a good strange or a bad."

                               * * *

12 Grimmauld Place, Saturday, August 14, 1995, 9:21 AM

The next morning I slept in slightly, having stayed up a bit late
to read the first through fourth year defense texts.  Besides, my
days were wide open for almost another week, and I had no
particular reason to be anywhere in a hurry.

I eventually wandered down to the kitchen after washing up and
dressing (today's T-shirt:  "Kinetic Energy:  Pass It On!") to
find that of the adults who actually *lived* in the house, only
Molly was around, bustling about the kitchen and ready to serve
me a very British breakfast.  I had barely entered when she sat
me down at the table and set a plate in front of me, loaded down
with a classic fry-up -- toast, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon,
grilled tomato slices, mushrooms and potato cakes.  A moment
later, orange juice and tea joined it.

I blinked.  "Whoa.  Thank you, Molly."

"Eat up, dear," she said amiably, and I dug in, after snagging a
newspaper left at the end of the table to read as I did so.  From
the odd hue of the paper in the kitchen's low light I thought it
might be the "Financial Times", but it turned out to be a
wizarding newspaper called "The Daily Prophet".  I paged through
it as I ate, more for the sake of having something to look at
than out of any need to catch up on wizarding current events.
Like most everything else wizarding, it looked about a hundred
years out of date, between its typography and its graphic design.
If it weren't for the story subjects and the animated photos -- a
nice trick which I needed to learn and bring back home -- it
wouldn't have looked out of place in the American Old West.

Hm.  I'd have to catch a game of this "Quidditch".  From the
action shots in the sports section, it looked rather interesting.

When I finished eating, I insisted on cleaning up after myself
over Molly's objections, thanked her again for cooking for me,
and let her know that I would be heading back out to Diagon Alley
in case anyone needed me.

Half an hour later I was back on the Alley, dressed once more in
the robes I'd borrowed from Charlie (for hopefully the last
time).  The weather was still sunny and broiling, but the robes
had some kind of comfort charm on them, so while my face was hot,
my body wasn't.  It made the day that much easier to cope with.

Even though it wasn't noon yet, I checked on my order at Flourish
and Blott's.  I was pleased to discover it was waiting for me
behind the counter; having prepaid, all I needed to do was claim
it.  It took a couple tries with my wand/rubber chicken, but I
managed to shrink the bundle down to a manageable size and stash
it in my sleeve.  (Any insinuation that I enjoyed the bug-eyed
look on the clerk's face as I waved that chicken around is
absolutely false.  I swear it.)

After that, I spent almost an hour browsing those parts of the
shop which I had ignored the day before.  I had decided during
my perusal of "The Daily Prophet" that I needed more cultural
context in order to function in this society, and that's what I
went looking for -- books of history, sociology (or what passed
for it here), even popular fiction.  Anything that would give me
a picture of what a native member of the wizarding world was
expected to know and how they were expected to act.

I ended up with another armful ranging from hand-sized volumes of
folk tales (I'd need to look into this Beedle and see if there
were more of his works about) to large scholarly tomes.  I passed
over more of my gold and did another chicken dance to shrink the
new brown-paper package I got in exchange.

I then poked my head into Madam Malkin's next door, and learned
that my new wardrobe would be another couple hours yet before it
was ready.  That unexpectedly left me at loose ends.  Not yet
being hungry enough to want lunch (after Molly's breakfast?  You
must be kidding!), I decided to browse the entire Alley once
more, focusing this time on the places we'd overlooked or passed
by the day before.

And I'm glad I did, because I discovered this little hole-in-the-
wall shop that sold all manner of magical devices.  I spent an
hour and a couple hundred galleons in there, picking up a bag of
toys -- some of which were for my defense classes, and some of
which were because I'm an immature individual with too much money
and too little impulse control, prone to going, "that's cool!  I
want it!"  I made that shopkeeper's day, I'll tell you.

Well, another storm of chicken-waving, and my sleeves got a
little heavier.  Then it was back out on the street.

A tanner's shop caught my eye next, and I spent a good quarter-
hour or so browsing there.  In addition to the more mundane hides
and leathers, the tanner also stocked more exotic wares -- such
as dragon skin.  This line of products I studied most carefully,
and I ended up debating with myself the virtues of buying a local
set of armor.  I was tempted, but in the end I decided not to.
The only thing I did buy was a wand holster that strapped to my
arm.  At eleven inches, my wand just barely fit along the inside
of my forearm; it wouldn't be the most comfortable accessory, but
the wand's construction was so fragile that I didn't want to risk
just shoving it into my belt or sleeve pocket any longer than I
absolutely had to.

I left the shop wearing the holster on my left arm, with my wand
(naturally enough) securely inside it.  By this point I actually
felt like I could eat lunch, so off to the Cauldron I went.

It was on my way to the Cauldron that I realized that I was being
followed.  It was hard not to -- my tail was a pair of burly
wizards in black robes who stalked me with all the care and
subtle tradecraft of a drunken bull.  Their every motion in
passing through the crowd behind me amply demonstrated that to
them, stealth was a concept that applied only to other people.

In a culture with Disillusionment spells and invisibility cloaks,
*this* is how the two of them decide to follow someone?  Feh.
Amateurs.

Gods save me from having to deal with freakin' amateurs.

So I ignored them and headed into the Cauldron as I'd intended.
To my vast surprise, they had at least enough sense to not follow
me in.  This allowed me to enjoy the leisurely lunch I'd been
looking forward to.  (I like pub grub, even vaguely medieval pub
grub.  What can I say?)

An hour or so later I stepped back through the brick gate, and
sure enough, Frick and Frack were still lurking about.  They were
very obviously loitering several doors up the Alley -- not close
enough to loom directly over the gateway to the Cauldron, but not
far enough away to be credible, either.  I pretended not to see
them jerk to attention when they finally noticed I was back in
the Alley.

Well, you know, if they were that dedicated (for lack of a better
word) I should be nice and find out what they wanted.  Of course,
large burly types in black who clumsily stalk people rarely want
to sell them girl scout cookies or solicit donations to the old
sailors' home, but hey, you never know.  People are complicated,
sometimes they surprise you.

I certainly planned on surprising *them*.

Pretending that they had the finest of invisibility cloaks
draped over their imposing frames in exactly the right way as to
make them absolutely undetectable, I strode right past the bulky
pair, just to make sure they caught the scent.  Then I strolled
down the street -- slowly, so they could keep up without having
to shove too many other pedestrians out of the way -- until I
found a narrow gap between two of the shops.  Too narrow to
really be called an alley in its own right, it was nothing more
than the bare minimum space between two buildings that *didn't*
share a wall.  I followed it for several meters, and smiled
when I realized that it had a zig-zag in it, where one building
widened and the other narrowed accordingly.  But not to the same
degree, which resulted a small dead-end cul-de-sac about two
meters across and three long just past the zig-zag.

Excellent.

Making my way up to the roof level was laughably easy, and once
there I perched, gargoyle-like, right on the edge of the narrower
building.  And waited.

Sure enough, those two masters of stealth followed me right on
in, and kept on going until they hit the dead end.  Like normals,
they didn't think to look up.  But unlike normals, they didn't
get confused at my disappearance -- I heard one of them growl,
"'E must 'ave disapparated."

Taking that as my cue, I dropped down off the roof into the
mouth of the cul-de-sac, and asked, "Can I help you gentlemen?"
With their bulk and their hoods up, they had a distinctly
bearlike appearance up close.

They spun in place, managing to fumble out their wands as they
did. "'Ere, now, you Douglas Sang-noyer?" the bigger of the two
(which wasn't by much) ground out.

I perked up as if surprised by a realization.  "Why, yes!  Yes, I
do believe that I am!"

"Well, me friend and me're here t' let y' know that yer goin'
t' quit bein' a perfesser at Hogwarts if y'know what's good fer
ye,"  Papa Bear continued.  Wow.  More than ten words in a row.
I was impressed.

I didn't let it show.  I just put on an elaborately confused
expression.  "And if I don't?"

He raised his wand.  "Me friend and me, we're goin' t'make sure
y'know what's good fer ye."

Baby Bear nodded his hooded head and raised his wand, too.

"Oh, dear," I said, making big, sad puppy-dog eyes at them.  "And
I was *so* hoping it was going to be girl scout cookies, too."

                               * * *

About a minute or so later, I exited the narrow little gap
between the two buildings, wiping my hands on my robes.  *Gonna
have to wash these before I give them back to Charlie,* I
thought despite the very recent "scourgify" I'd applied to them.
*Oh, well.*

Whistling, I walked back down the Alley toward the Cauldron until
I came upon Madam Malkin's again.  I stepped inside, discovered
that my wardrobe was ready for me, and determined that my day's
excursion to Diagon Alley was finally at an end.

                               * * *

12 Grimmauld Place, Sunday, August 15, 1995, 8:41 AM

I managed to make it to breakfast in the dining room with the
entire household on Sunday morning.  With nearly a dozen people
present, it was served (obviously enough) family-style, which is
quite an impressive sight when the family in question is entirely
magically active.  Platters and serving bowls would hover over
the table, directed by wand to whoever wanted their contents
next.  Pitchers of beverages would spontaneously fill themselves
and then fill glasses, which would march across the table as
needed.  Dirty dishes would vanish, only to be replaced by clean
ones (or perhaps the same ones, near-instantly washed and dried).

It was like eating at a restaurant run by Mary Poppins, Phoebe
Figalilly, and Nanny McPhee.  Without perky songs written by the
Sherman Brothers.

Arthur was at one end of the table, the morning's copy of "The
Daily Prophet" in one hand, a tea cup in the other.  "Merlin's
beard!" he suddenly exclaimed.  "Would you listen to this?  Two
known Dark wizards were found just off Diagon Alley yesterday
afternoon, bloody, unconscious and beaten nearly to death.
They'd been left propped up in a sitting position against the
wall of a shop, and..."  He looked up, stunned.  "Their left
hands were held up above their heads by their wands, which had
been driven through their palms and into the side of the
building."

While an impressive hubbub erupted among the younger set, Molly
set upon Arthur, smacking him (lightly).  "Arthur, you know
better than to read something like that at the table!"

Charlie snatched the paper out of his father's hand before his
mother could, and found the article.  "Huh.  The Ministry is
refusing to comment, but before the Aurors got there a huge crowd
gathered to get a look at them."  He looked up and caught my eye.
"Doug, you were in Diagon Alley yesterday afternoon.  Did you see
anything?"

I shook my head.  "Nope, I didn't see any crowd.  That must have
happened after I left."  Charlie gave me a "don't bullshit me"
look, but didn't say anything else.  And while he was focused on
me, Molly yanked the paper out of his hand and vanished it with
a wave of her wand.

"No more news at the breakfast table!" she declared.

"But Molly!" Arthur pleaded as the children laughed, and Charlie
gave me a look that told me he knew *exactly* who had nailed a
certain two thugs to a wall.

                               * * *

The rest of my week at 12 Grim was rather dull compared to those
first few days.  I saw Dumbledore once more, and met a few more
members of the Order of the Phoenix when the core group assembled
for a meeting in the kitchen.  (At least I *hoped* it was the
core group; gods help them if that was their total number.)
Dumbledore invited me in and introduced me, explaining that I
was a new "ally" of the Order who had offered to train anyone who
wanted it.

One of the cadre, a walking advertisement for homemade
prosthetics named Alastor Moody, spent all of his time in my
presence examining me rather thoroughly with an obviously magical
replacement eye.  He grunted and nodded approvingly when I raised
an eyebrow at him, so I suppose I must have passed muster
somehow.  In return I ran a tactical on him and decided that,
regardless of his power level and missing body parts, he would be
a tough nut to crack if I ever had to face him in combat.

The rest of the group weren't nearly as impressive as a whole.
The adult Weasleys, including Charlie and Bill, were there --
nice people, but Arthur and Molly weren't soldiers.  The big
black guy, who was one of the wizard cops, seemed more than
competent enough.  The polymorphic klutz, the malodorous rag-and-
bone man, the random housewives and the little nervous guy,
though -- none of them struck me as a particularly promising core
around which to form a militia.  Sure, they had what amounted to
heavy artillery in the form of Dumbledore, but... oy.

Oh, and there was the hook-nosed goth wannabe, the sneer that
walked like a man.  He looked like a teenager who'd been forced
to visit an elderly maiden aunt whose only topic of discussion
was her cats.  What was up with *him*?

I suppressed a sigh, made my greetings, memorized names, and left
the meeting as quickly as I could politely do so.  I was already
regretting my offer to help them -- I'd still do my best, but
they really weren't the kind of force that could profit from my
expertise.

Well, aside from that promising little encounter, my remaining
days at 12 Grim were simple.  I split my time between roving
through (and memorizing locations in) both mundane and magical
London with Charlie, talking motorcycles (and a few more personal
topics) with Sirius, and devouring all the defense texts I'd
bought.  I camped out in the room they'd given me, playing null-
power songs and instrumentals on my helmet's external speakers,
and tried to get through at least a couple books a day.  As I did
so, I kept an ordinary spiral-bound notebook to hand and jotted
down significant points, useful spell incantations, and most
importantly ideas for my syllabus.  Well, syllabi, really, since
I had to do up seven, one for each class year.

I have to say I liked the standard texts -- they were well-
written, took the time to establish the foundations for each
major point they covered, and had sufficient exercises and self-
quizzes to support both the learn-by-doing and the learn-by-
reading types among the students.  They built on each other, too,
with each year providing necessary groundwork for the year after
that, at least until seventh.

Such a damned shame that no student currently in the school had
ever been properly taught from them.  According to Remus, skill
levels were all over the place, with some upperclassmen barely
able to defend themselves, while some younger students were
routinely doing graduate-level work.  Most of the students who
got passing or better grades did so mostly on the basis of self-
study according to him.

I confirmed this claim by the simple expedient of quizzing the
Hogwarts students I had handy.  These, I determined, constituted
a reasonable sampling of the student body:  one over-achieving
genius, one slacker, one borderline underachiever, one normal
student, and the twins, who defied easy classification as readily
as they defied authority.

And boy howdy, did they all have their own horror stories about
their previous years.

I had suspected from the first that I was going to need to come
up with an aggressive curriculum.  After hearing their tales, I
saw that I had been right, and spent my last day or so plotting
out, in broad strokes, how I planned to approach each year -- and
what books I would need.  The incoming first years hadn't been
damaged yet, so I could use the standard text with them.  But
second through seventh years?  Sterner measures were required.  I
was going to be hated.  But they would learn.

By the time word came that the Board of Governors had
rubberstamped my hire and I should prepare for the move to
Hogwarts, I had a list of books to give to Minerva McGonagall.

                               * * *

The British Ministry of Magic, London, UK.  Monday, August 16,
1995, 10:31 AM

Eleuthero Avery ghosted his way through the Department of
Mysteries like every other Unspeakable who worked there, passing
through the offices and corridors unnoticed and unremarked-upon.
His destination, as it had frequently been in the near-month
since the Dark Lord had ... *re-emphasized* ... his task, was the
newest high-security workroom in the entire complex.

The entrance to the Department was at the very deepest level of
the Ministry, far below the Atrium, but even deeper than that
were the workrooms in which the Unspeakables studied the great
mysteries of magic that gave the department its name.  Avery
shuddered as he passed the door behind which stood one of those
mysteries:  the Veil.  The curtained arch never failed to
unsettle him to a degree that not even the Dark Lord could, and
he hated to even come near the room in which it resided.

Almost as bad was the Brain Room, around whose door he made a
slight detour, only to curve back just as far in the other
direction when he approached the Nothing Room on the other side
of the hall.  He shook his head as if to clear it.  *Thank Merlin
they're not *my* responsibility.*

Finally, past all the workrooms, Avery came to a stop at the
newest door to be added to this hallway -- the entrance to the
chamber housing what had, in the last month, become known in the
Department simply as "*The* Prophecy".  As he stood before the
door, he silently cursed the event which had made Potter's
prophecy sphere the focus of extreme attention from both the
Department and the Dark Lord.  The latter now required that
Avery sabotage the elaborate and very deadly protections woven
around the room and its contents so that Potter could be led
right to the sphere.

Avery glumly considered his original plan as he identified
himself to the guards and wards that formed the first line of
defense for The Prophecy.  He had attempted to shortcut around
both requirements by actually submitting a request to the
Minister to bring Potter in to play back the prophecy recorded in
the sphere, a request which had been promptly denied.  Merlin
knew that Potter would have been of invaluable aid to the
investigation into the disaster and its causes.  The fact that it
would also have served his Lord's needs was a side effect he did
not intend for the Ministry to discover.  But, no doubt because
Potter was persona non grata with the Minister these days, there
was no chance that things would work out so easily.

Nodding to the fellow Unspeakables standing guard in the
antechamber between the outer and inner doors, Avery repeated
the whole process for the second, much more powerful and
comprehensive, wards at the inner door.  He suppressed a pained
wince at the recollection of what his attempt at an innovative
solution had earned him.

As it had turned out, the Dark Lord had been less than pleased by
his initiative.  Lord Voldemort desired that only *he* know the
contents of the prophecy; doing the simple and logical thing was
therefore out of the question.  After punishing Avery with the
Cruciatus, the Dark Lord had made his will very clear:  Potter
had to be lured into the Department of Mysteries to play back The
Prophecy when no one from the Ministry could hear or record it.
After that, the sphere would be destroyed and Potter killed,
leaving Voldemort the only one in possession of its secrets.

Which meant, Avery mused sullenly, weakening the protections
on what was now the most thoroughly-defended and -monitored room
in the entire Ministry, in the best-defended department in the
entire Ministry, so that a 15-year-old boy with no experience in
breaking and entering could waltz in when he finally took it into
his head to follow up on the dreams and compulsions the Dark Lord
was sending him.  And doing so in such a way that no one noticed,
keeping it all compromised for as long as it took for Potter to
get off his arse, and -- most importantly, one traitorous part of
his mind insisted -- not getting caught at it.

Or else suffer death or worse at the hands of the Dark Lord.

There were times, Avery reflected as he stepped into the
single most secure room in the British Isles, when the price of
failure might be worth paying.

                               * * *

12 Grimmauld Place, Wednesday, August 18, 1995, 8:26 AM

All told, it took only five days for the Governors to approve me.
(And this on the basis of Dumbledore's say-so alone, as I had no
history or documentation at all in this world other than a four-
week-old Gringotts account.)  Dumbledore stopped by 12 Grim on
the evening of August 17th to tell me the good news, and to let
me know that my quarters were ready for me whenever I cared to
make the move.

Well, he stopped by for other reasons, too, but they didn't
really concern me.  No one in the Order had yet taken me up on my
offers.

After dinner, I used the house Floo to make a quick trip to
Hogsmeade with my helmet.  In most versions of Earth, the
earliest functional version of the Global Positioning System is
(just barely) up and running in 1995, and this timeline was no
different.  In Hogsmeade I instructed my helmet's GPS unit to
determine and store the town's latitude and longitude.

I then returned to Grim Old Number 12 and downloaded that data
into my motorcycle's autopilot.  It wasn't practical to ship my
bike again, nor possible to take it through the Floo.  I wasn't
stupid enough to try to Portkey with it, and gods help anyone who
might try to apparate it.  So I was going to fly to my new job.

It wasn't going to be a hardship.  Running the numbers showed me
that, being roughly at 57ºN and 5.5ºW, Hogwarts was only about
700 kilometers from London as the crow flies; even keeping the
bike safely below Mach 1, I could make that distance in less than
an hour.  (And if for some reason I had to hurry, I could do it
in half an hour or less.)  The stealth suite would keep me off of
UK, NATO and other radars, and the cockpit field would keep me
comfortable on the way.  It would practically be a pleasure
jaunt.

Not to mention I wanted to see everyone's faces as I took off
from the yard.

I spent the rest of the evening swinging my rubber chicken around
and practicing shrinking and restoring stuff.  Not that I really
needed to with my Skuld-made panniers, but it made collecting up
everything I had in my room so much easier.  Swish!  And into my
pocket.  Oh, yeah.

I did have to re-enlarge my bed a couple of times, though.

The next morning, I did breakfast one last time with Sirius,
Remus, and the entire Weasley clan plus teenaged hangers-on.
Thanks to the Headmaster's visit the previous night it was no
secret that I was departing for Hogwarts that morning, so the
meal became something of an impromptu "bon voyage" party.

I even got a going-away present -- after the meal was over but
before I'd had a chance to return to my room to pack, Fred and
George cornered me in the hallway.  While Sirius acted as a
lookout, they presented me with a plain cardboard box, marked
only with three interlocking, handwritten "W"s.

"Samples of our future wares," one explained.

"You seem to be the type who'd enjoy them," the other added.

"Even if you are a professor," the first amended.

"Well, geeze, guys, I don't know what to say."  I studied the
box.  "Unless it's 'how far away should I stand when opening
this?'"

The two of them grinned.  "We're not stupid," number two said
piously.  "We're not going to prank a professor."

"At least not this obviously," the other added with a shrug.
"When we prank you for real, you'll know it had to have been
us..."

"But you won't be able to prove it!" the first ended
triumphantly.

I raised an eyebrow at them.  "Should I take that as a challenge,
boys?"

They traded glances.  "If you like," the first replied.

I laughed.  I had to admire these two and their chutzpah.  "Tell
you what, guys.  If you get me some time this year -- really get
me, with something innovative and new, nothing tired like buckets
over open doors -- I'll give you both extra credit A+'s ... um,
O's," I corrected myself, recalling the Hogwarts grading system
at the last moment.  "One each."

"Deal!" they said together, and stuck out their right hands.  I
shook both at the same time, one with my right hand and one with
my left, then let go, crossed my arms, and shook again.  This got
me a pair of broad smiles, followed by a furtive disappearance
from the hallway.

A couple meters away at his post, Sirius was shaking his head and
chuckling.  "You're in trouble now, Doug."

I shot him a wry smile.  "I'm always in trouble," I said.  "It's
a defining characteristic of my life."

Half an hour later I'd shrunk all my accumulated possessions and
stashed them in one of the panniers, and had changed out of my
robes and into my leathers.  Helmet in hand, I stood in the back
yard with the entire household present and made my goodbyes.  You
can guess the kind of sentiments I expressed as I made my way
through the adults present, so I don't need to iterate through
all of them here.

The last one I came to, though, was Charlie.  He had somehow
failed to mention that he didn't have to leave until Sunday
afternoon -- "a couple days' vacation," my ass -- so he still had
the best part of a week to go before he had to get back to work,
the bastard.  And he gave me a smarmy grin that told me he was
going to enjoy every extra day of leisure he had.

"You want I should belt you for that smile?" I asked him, not at
all seriously.

"Hey," he said, "you're the one who decided he had to get a
better job."

"What can I say?  My only goal in life is to accumulate a pile of
gold big enough to swim in," I said with a shrug.

Charlie rolled his eyes.  "So of course you went into teaching."

"You know," I said after a moment, "for someone I've only known
for about a month, you've had a hell of an impact on my life.
It's going to be strange *not* hanging around with you."

He shrugged.  "Eh.  You'll have Ron and the twins handy if you
need a Weasley fix.  The three of them combined *almost* equal
one of me."

"Oi!" three different voices declared in outrage from the porch,
and the yard erupted in laughter.

"Take care of yourself, Charlie.  Don't get careless and eaten
by a dragon."  I pulled him into a manly hug and pounded his
back.

"You, too, Doug," he replied, pounding me back.  "Don't get
careless and eaten by a firstie."

I nodded vigorously.  "Oh, yeah, I hear they're *mean*.  Put a
Ridgeback to shame, they do."

"Exactly."

We stood there for a moment, wondering what else to say, until I
did what I always do in moments like that -- I fell back on what
the Rabbit would say.

"Weeeeelllll, good-bye!" I announced, wishing I'd had the
foresight to set up "California, Here I Come" to play in the
background as I did, and settled instead for whistling it.  As I
did, I turned and mounted my motorcycle, and then pulled on my
helmet.

                               * * *

"I still say the twins were taking the mickey out of you," Ron
whispered to Hermione as Professor Sangnoir, whistling merrily,
fastened the chin strap on his helmet while standing astride his
motorcycle.  Not being among the adults to whom the professor had
been making his farewells, the teens had congregated on the porch
to witness his departure.  It promised to be interesting at the
very least, since the high stone walls that surrounded 12
Grimmauld Place's back yard had no gate nor any other opening in
them.

Hermione bit her lip.  "They swore up and down that they'd seen
the motorcycle lift up off the porch and fly into the yard.  And
told me to ask Charlie or Sirius if I doubted them."

"Oh, like that'd reassure you," Ron scoffed.  "Those two are just
as big a pair of jokers as the twins are.  Hell, the twins
consider Charlie their role model."

"The thing is," Hermione went on as if not hearing him, "if that
motorcycle were magical I wouldn't give it a second thought -- I
mean, Sirius' bike flies.  But this is a *Muggle* motorcycle, no
matter how strange.  Even if it *did* have wings or something --
which it doesn't -- it couldn't generate enough power to lift
itself off..."

At that point Professor Sangnoir pressed a button on the cycle's
instrument panel and its engine howled to life, so loudly that
everyone clapped their hands over their ears to block out the
thunderous shriek.  Then the professor touched something else on
the dashboard, and the sound was suddenly reduced to a whisper.
"Oops," he called out.  "Sorry about that!"

He touched another control, and to Hermione's amazement, the
motorcycle slowly lifted off the ground until it came to a hover
almost ten feet in the air.  A third touch and the arms on which
its wheels were mounted began to swing up and to the sides -- the
front wheel to the professor's left, and the rear wheel to the
right until they stretched out to either side like wings; as they
locked into place with a double "clunk" that was audible even on
the porch, their hubs began to glow with an actinic blue-white
light.  "It was good to meet all of you," Professor Sangnoir
shouted down at them.  "Take care of yourselves!  And you lot --"
He pointed at the six of them on the porch.  "I'll see *you* in
two weeks," he intoned with mock ominousness.

Hermione suddenly realised she'd been holding her breath and let
it out in an explosive release.  Next to her, Ron alternately
swore and hissed "Wicked!" under his breath, while the twins were
cheering.  She had no idea how Harry and Ginny were reacting; to
find out, she'd've had to have taken her eyes off the professor
and his motorcycle, and she wouldn't dare do that.  Once again in
her life she had been shown that the impossible was in fact
possible, and once again new vistas of knowledge had been
revealed to her; she would not waste any moment that might betray
a clue or secret.

As she watched, Professor Sangnoir and his motorcycle rippled and
faded away to nothingness in a manner unlike any Disillusionment
or invisibility effect she'd ever seen.  The only evidence that
they were still there was the muted roar of the motorcycle's
engine.

Unseen, the professor shouted, "Goodbye, everyone!"  A moment
later, the sourceless howl of the turbine faded into the sky
above.

When the sound had completely disappeared, Hermione whirled to
face her companions on the porch.  "Upstairs.  Now," she snapped.
"We have a *lot* to talk about."  Then she marched off, leaving
Ron and Harry blinking behind her as the twins and Ginny
followed, laughing.

                               * * *

Several hours later, Harry sat at the desk in the room he shared
with Ron, twirling a quill through his fingers and staring
unseeing at the textbooks open on the table before him.  The
meeting Hermione had called right after Professor Sangnoir's
departure had only confused and worried him, despite her attempt
to solve what she called "the puzzle of who he is".

Harry had been surprised at just how much they had learned about
the professor without realizing it.  Even *he'd* been able to
contribute something -- that the professor had listened to Muggle
music while reading through all the books he'd bought.  And that
he'd played it through his *motorcycle helmet*, of all things.

At least Harry *thought* it was Muggle music.  It certainly
didn't sound like Wizarding music, and if it wasn't Wizarding
music, it had to be Muggle, right?  Even if Harry had never heard
anything like that one piece with the drums, the chimes and the
string quartet in *either* world.

Then of course there was all they'd learned by eavesdropping on
the Order meeting that week with the twins' latest invention, the
Extendable Ears.

It was Fred and George's revelations that confused and concerned
him most, though.  They had managed to overhear a number of
conversations between the professor and their brother Charlie
that made it clear that whatever secret the professor possessed,
Charlie knew it -- and it was a big one.

Harry tried to imagine what that secret could possibly be, given
all the things they'd already figured out.  The concept of a
wizard *so* powerful that he *couldn't* use a wand, for one; he
kept finding himself wondering how Professor Sangnoir compared to
Dumbledore and Voldemort -- both of whom still relied on the
wands they'd had since they were first-years.  It was, he had to
admit, mind-boggling.

Worse, it was frightening.  If, as all his previous Defense
professors had done, Professor Sangnoir attacked him before the
end of the year, how could he defend himself or his friends from
someone Charlie's co-workers called, however jokingly, "Merlin
reborn"?  A man who, if Charlie's stories were to be believed,
was also capable of knocking out a full-grown dragon with a
single punch?  When the inevitable finally happened, how could he
fight a monster like that?

Harry's stomach sank at the thought, and he felt the all-too-
familiar anger surge at the unfairness of it all.  Wasn't having
both Voldemort and the Ministry out to get him enough?  Now he
had to cope with some mysterious super-wizard?  He wanted so much
to talk to Professor Dumbledore about it.  But the Headmaster,
who had been almost like a grandfather to him for the last four
years, was now refusing to even be in the same room with him --
let alone counsel him.

He'd almost lost himself to his anger when there was an abrupt
snap.  Startled, he looked down to find his quill clenched so
tightly in his fist that he'd broken the shaft in half.
Scowling, he growled and flung the broken pen across the room and
into the trash bin.

Professor Sangnoir's magical or physical strength hadn't
concerned Hermione so much as the whole picture, which seemed to
upset her thoroughly.  He hadn't heard her use the word
"impossible" so often in one conversation since, well, since they
first met.  *Everything* about the professor seemed to be
impossible -- from his motorcycle to his magic -- and Hermione
seemed to take it all as a personal insult.

Harry wasn't quite sure what she had been going on about with
"Woolfell's First Principle of Universal Magic" and magical
background levels, but it seemed to involve both the professor's
motorcycle and wherever his home was, and had prompted a furious
discussion between Hermione and the twins that had left the other
three blinking in confusion.

The meeting had only broken up when no one could remember
anything more about the professor that they wanted to contribute.
Hermione had accumulated a list of "oddities" more than three
feet of parchment long, and when they were done announced her
intention to make a bee-line for the Black library to do some
research.

*No surprise there,* Harry thought, calming a bit.  *Hermione
plus puzzle equals research.*  She'd only taken a break for
lunch, and that only because Ginny had dragged her bodily down
to the dining room.  Harry smiled faintly.  The comfortable
routine of Hermione worrying at a riddle or problem was in its
own way reassuring.  If there were anything to be discovered
about Professor Sangnoir that way, she would inevitably ferret it
out -- if not here, then in Hogwarts' library once they went back
to school.

He was absolutely certain of it.

                               * * *

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Wednesday, August 18,
1995, 9:43 AM

As I had anticipated, I made it to Hogwarts in less than an hour,
arriving on the outskirts of Hogsmeade at about quarter to ten.
I lowered and locked the wheels, then cut the stealth suite except
for the engine noise suppression before coming in for a rolling
landing on the dirt lane linking the village and the school.  I
didn't come to a stop but instead continued up the road to the
castle at a good 50kph or so.  I startled a wizard or two as I
went past, and I arrived at the courtyard and the front doors in
just a few minutes.

I parked the bike, and then detached the panniers.  After setting
the anti-theft systems to a harsh but non-lethal level, I slung
the whole pannier rack up onto my shoulder, walked up to those
huge doors, and pushed one open.

"Hello?" I called out into the empty entry hall as I stepped
inside.  I closed the door behind me as gently as I could, but it
still made a "THUD!" that echoed up and down the hall for what
seemed like a minute afterward.  "Hello?" I repeated a little
louder.

A few moments later I heard claws on stone, and a cat appeared
from the far end of the hall, peering suspiciously around one of
the suits of armor.  *A cat?  By itself?* I wondered.  *Oh, wait,
didn't Charlie mention...*

"Professor McGonagall!" I called out as I approached her.  Closer
up, the Professor's shapeshifted form wasn't very impressive.
She had bulging yellow eyes and fur almost exactly the color of
dust bunnies, and was skeletally thin -- if it were possible for
cats to become zombies, I would have been prepared to believe it
was the case here.  Somehow I had expected that the professor's
Animagus form (as I'd learned it was called -- a kind of benign
were-like shapeshifting acquired by study and practice) would be,
well, nicer-looking.  This cat looked thoroughly unpleasant.

"I'm sure you remember me," I went on as the professor stared up
unblinkingly.  "Charlie Weasley brought me by about a week ago?
And Headmaster Dumbledore must have told you that I would be
arriving today."

She just continued to stare at me, and showed no sign of planning
on doing anything else.

"So," I continued, "if you'd be so kind as to lead me to the
Headmaster's office so I can present myself and finish whatever
paperwork there might be..."

"Here, now, where'd you get off to?" a rasping voice echoed
around us.  A moment later a fellow almost as unpleasant-looking
as Professor McGonagall's cat form appeared from behind the same
suit of armor.  He might have been my height, but was stooped
slightly, his shoulders hunched and bent.  He was bald from the
ears up, with a shoulder-length curtain of lank grey hair wrapped
around the back of his head, and his lined and seamed face was
caught in a perpetual scowl.  Both he and his clothes seemed a
bit grimy and greasy.

"Ah, there you are," he said on coming upon the Professor, and
then he spotted me.  "What have we here, a trespasser?"  He took
a second, up-and-down look at me, taking me in from head to toe.
"A Muggle?  In Hogwarts?"

I steeled myself and held out a hand.  "Douglas Sangnoir.  I'm
the new Defense professor?  I was just asking Professor
McGonagall here..."

He burst into a bray of laughter.  "Professor McGonagall?  This
isn't Professor McGonagall, you damned fool!  This is Mrs.
Norris."  He scooped the cat up in his arms and cuddled it,
rubbing his face into its fur.  "Aren't you, m'dear?"  The cat
made no noise, and continued to stare, quite balefully, at me.

"Oh," I said, feeling profoundly stupid, and wondering if I
should try explaining my mistake or whether I'd just end up
looking more stupid by doing so.  I decided to cut my losses.  I
also lowered my hand, as it appeared that Gollum here wasn't
about to shake it.  At least not while cuddling an armful of
zombie cat.  "Um.  And you are...?"

His perpetual scowl twisted into scowl-plus.  "Argus Filch.  I be
the caretaker around here."

"Ah, then," I said.  "Perhaps you could be so kind as to lead me
to the Headmaster's office, then?"  I was *fairly* sure I could
find it myself despite the moving staircases, having been there
once already only a week or so earlier.  But it was better
workplace politics to let someone bring me there, at least on the
first day.

Filch glared at me through one eye, the other buried in Mrs.
Norris's fur, for several seconds.  Then he lifted his face from
the cat's back.  "Aye.  Follow me, and watch yer step."

                               * * *

Argus Filch may be many things, but a sparking conversationalist
(or a conversationalist of any type, for that matter) is not one
of them.  I tried to make small talk with him on the way to the
Headmaster's office, but the only responses he gave were various
grunts and one vociferous diatribe about how school discipline
had gone downhill since they stopped using the rack, the iron
maiden and red hot pincers on students.

I made a resolution then and there to *never* discuss the Weasley
family with him ever again.

Fortunately, we reached the Headmaster's office before I could
put my foot in my mouth a third time.  He walked up to the stone
gargoyle, smacked it on top of its rocky head, and growled, "Let
the Headmaster know the new Defense professor's here, y'great
lump."  Then he turned around and stalked off without another
word to me.

"'What an eccentric performance'," I quoted to myself, shaking my
head, as the gargoyle stepped aside to reveal the spiral stone
escalator behind it.  I stepped onto it, and a moment later I was
on a landing before the office door.

"Come in, Douglas," Dumbledore's voice echoed through the door
just as I lifted a hand to knock.  I turned the motion into a
grab for the handle, and opened the door instead.  Still carrying
the pannier rack from my bike on my shoulder, I stepped into the
office.

Little had changed in a week -- fireplace, paintings, little
whirring and puffing gadgets, messy desk, big throne-like chair,
all pretty much the same.  The only additions were Dumbledore
himself, dressed in forest green robes and seated in that chair,
and the large scarlet and gold bird perched on the stand near
him.

"Good morning, Douglas," Dumbledore said, closing the book in his
hands and laying it on the desk to his left.

"Good morning, Headmaster," I said, lowering the rack to the
floor so I could stand up more or less straight.  "Reporting for
duty, as ordered," I added with a grin.  I suppressed the urge to
give him a Benny Hill-style salute; not until I knew the man
better and could judge his reactions.

Then I went ahead and spoiled that resolution almost immediately
by nodding at his pet and saying, "Remarkable bird, the Norwegian
Red.  Beautiful plumage!"

The Headmaster gaped at me for a moment, then burst out in gales
of laughter.  The bird in question seemed amused as well,
emitting an arpeggio of trills that I found pleasant, and even
encouraging.

It took a little while, but eventually the Headmaster's laughter
trailed off to mere chuckles as he wiped his eyes.  "Oh, my.  Oh,
my, I haven't laughed like that in quite a while."  He took off
his glasses and wiped them with a cloth he retrieved from his
desk.  "I must say I wasn't expecting a Monty Python quotation
from you, Colonel.  I had assumed from your military background
and your demeanour during our last meeting that you would be
somewhat more... reserved."

As any number of "military reserve" jokes dashed through my mind,
I inclined my head slightly.  "For my part, I have to say that
I'm surprised you're familiar enough -- or at all! -- with the
Pythons to have even gotten the joke."

"Ah," he said, putting his glasses back on his crooked nose.
"Unlike many of my fellow wizards, I am not *entirely* ignorant
of the Muggle world."

"Then shall we say we are each more complex than the other
expected?" I asked with a smile.

"Indeed, Douglas, indeed."  He stood and crossed to the stand.
"My bright-feathered friend here is my familiar, Fox.  Lovely as
his plumage is, he is not, in fact, the fabled Norwegian Red
Parrot -- distant cousin to the Norwegian Blue, I have been
told," he added with a twinkle in his eye, "but that most rare of
creatures, a phoenix."

"A phoenix?" I exclaimed.  "Whoa.  No wonder you cracked up over
the Dead Parrot Sketch."  I reached out to stroke Fox's feathers,
and the phoenix trilled again as it leaned into my touch.  "I
take it this beauty is why you named the Order as you did?"

The old wizard nodded.  "Precisely.  Phoenixes are creatures of
light, and their cycle of death and resurrection symbolises the
eternal triumph of light over darkness."  He smiled as he watched
Fox eagerly receive my attention.

I raised an eyebrow at him.  "Phoenixes, plural?  Huh.  In my
home universe, the Phoenix is a single, unique creature of
Celestial origin.  They're a corporeal species here?"

"There is more than one phoenix in the world, but 'species' is
perhaps the wrong word for them," Dumbledore said thoughtfully.
"It might be better to describe them as free-willed elemental
spirits of Light -- despite their obvious associations with
Fire."  His gnarled hand joined mine in stroking the now blissed-
out bird.  "Although I call him my familiar, Fox is in no way
bound to me.  He stays with me of his own free will, in a kind
of... partnership, you might say."

"Nice work if you can get it," I murmured.  Then it hit me.
Phoenix.  Fire.  The phoenix wasn't named "Fox", but "Fawkes".
As in "Guy Fawkes".  Argh.  I gave Dumbledore a flat look.  "Oh,
geeze.  A phoenix named 'Fawkes'.  I just got that."  The
Headmaster was chuckling at me, his eyes twinkling again.  "You
know, if I'd heard that first, I wouldn't have worried about
cracking a joke in front of you."  I looked at the bird, which I
was pretty sure was now smiling as much as you could with a
beaked avian face.  "Was that his idea or yours?"

Dumbledore chuckled.  "Oh, his alone.  He has quite the sense of
humor, which I have had the benefit of enjoying for many years."

"I'll bet," I said, eyeing the phoenix for a moment.  He eyed me
back, with obvious amusement.  I returned my attention to the
Headmaster and said, "Well, back to the matter at hand.  I'm
here, I have my possessions, a book list for Professor
McGonagall, and my syllabi are all prepared.  What happens now?"

"Now," the Headmaster said, "we show you to your quarters and get
you settled in.  Then, I'll introduce you to the rest of the
staff over lunch in the Great Hall."

I nodded.  "Sounds like an excellent plan.  Let's do this."

"Very well."  Rather than leading me out the door to escort me
personally to my quarters, though, the Headmaster instead looked
up slightly -- as if studying the molding along the top of his
office wall -- and in a moderately loud voice said, "Twonky!"

I was just about to ask what spell that was, when a tiny humanoid
creature appeared with a pop just like a champagne cork going
off.  It was maybe 65 or 70 centimeters tall, certainly no
taller, with grey-green skin, long floppy ears, and eyes almost
the size of tennis balls -- literally.  The proportions of its
limbs made it clear it was a mature adult, and not a child of
whatever species it represented.  It was barefoot and clad in a
toga that looked like it had been made from a pair of dish towels
pinned together.

"Headmaster calls for Twonky?" it said in a high, squeaky voice.
I couldn't figure out what gender it was, or indeed if it even
*had* a gender.

"Twonky," the Headmaster said gently, "this is Douglas Sangnoir.
He is the new professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts."

The little thing bowed respectfully to me.  "Twonky is at your
service, Professor Douglas."

"Thank you, Twonky," I said, bowing back, for lack of any better
idea of what to do.

"I'd like you to take the professor to his quarters in the staff
wing and see to it that he has everything he needs to get settled
in.  Then tell the other house elves that he is here," the
Headmaster continued.  House elves?  Interesting.

It nodded so fast I half-expected to hear rattling.  "Yes, sir,
Headmaster."

"Douglas, Twonky here is a house-elf," Headmaster Dumbledore then
said to me.  "They maintain the castle, cook all the food, do all
the cleaning and all the laundry.  Any task Hogwarts requires to
keep running, they perform.  Sometimes I think they're more in
charge of the school than I am," he added with a smile.

Twonky looked scandalized, but didn't say anything.  Instead it
just wrung its tiny hands.

"In that case, Headmaster, I'll see you at lunch.  Noon, I
presume?" I asked as I hoisted my pannier rack back onto my
shoulder.

He nodded.  "Quite so."

As he returned to his seat behind the desk, I looked down at
Twonky.  "Well, then, lead on, MacDuff."

The little creature looked up at me and wrinkled its nose as we
stepped through the office door together.  "Twonky's name is
Twonky, not MacDuff."

Oy.

                               * * *

I'd thought packing by waving a rubber chicken around was
efficient.  It had nothing on *unpacking* with the help of a
house-elf.  A finger-snap and things were unshrunk (if still
shrunken) and put away where they were supposed to be.

The panniers confused the poor little thing, though.  Twonky
seemed to know that unpackables lurked within, but couldn't "pop"
them out, which frustrated it no end.  Not even when I'd opened
them could the house-elf just teleport the stuff inside -- I had
to reach in and pull out each item individually.  It slowed us
down a bit, but it gave me a little more control over where
things went.

Twonky, sad to say, was as poor a conversationalist as Argus
Filch.  I tried to pump it for information on the school, the
student body, even house elves -- and got bupkis.  I finally sent
the little creature on its way when all that was left was
arranging my photos and shelving my books.

The books were easy, as was the stand which held my katana.  The
photos should have been.  The picture of Maggie and myself
kissing against the skyline of MegaTokyo that Lisa took, well,
that had the place of honor in the center of the massive chest of
drawers that, along with an equally immense armoire, held all my
clothing (robes and normal stuff alike).  Around it I set all the
others:  the autographed shot of Sana in concert, completely
pimped out in her idol-wear; the group picture of me with
Buckaroo and the Cavaliers in front of their tour bus; the photo
I'd taken of the entire gang from the temple at the dinner table,
complete with Skuld giving me a giggly red-eye; the picture
Misato had taken of me leading Rei, Asuka and Shinji through a
kata in the dojo; and Utena and Anthy's wedding portrait.  I
couldn't help but smile fondly at each one as I withdrew it from
the box I kept them in when I made a world jump.

And then there was the photograph I *didn't* recognize.

With *me* in it.

...The hell?

The setting was very obviously a Disney "Magic Kingdom" park,
except the signage was all in Japanese.  I was in the foreground
in civvies -- jeans and polo shirt -- smiling and clearly having
a good time.  Hanging onto my arm was a very pretty Eurasian-
looking girl only a few centimeters shorter than me, with long
brown hair done up in a high ponytail; she was clearly a moment
away from bursting into laughter.  She looked way too young to be
a date, or at least *my* date -- no more than mid-teens, I'd
guess, despite her height and figure.

Behind us, but clearly included in the photo deliberately, were
six more girls.  Three of them -- one blonde with hair that hung
to her waist, another blonde with twin ponytails that reached her
*knees*, and a classic Japanese beauty with raven tresses down to
her butt -- were horsing around while a fourth (with short hair
so black it shone almost blue in the sunlight) stood off to the
side and looked mortified.  They all seemed to be about the same
age as the ponytailed girl on my arm.  Farther back, two older-
looking girls stood and watched the horseplay with a kind of
amused disapproval -- a tall, slender blonde with short hair who
stood arm-in-arm with a girl whose shoulder-length locks were the
color of seawater.

The frame was cheap black plastic like you'd get in a five-and-
dime store.  There were seven names written on it in kanji using
various sparkly metallic inks, each in a different hand:  Ami,
Rei, Usagi, Minako, Haruka, Michiru, and at the center top in a
circle, Makoto.  Along the bottom was written "To Doug-sensei".

*Well,* I thought, *I think I can guess which one is the girl
with the ponytail...*

But even with their names I had no idea who they were, nor why I
was at a Disney park with them.  Or why I suddenly felt ...
protective.

The obvious conclusion was that someone had messed with my
memories.

But who?  And why?

                               * * *

Pondering that question and how to answer it took me the rest of
the time up until noon.  In the privacy of my new quarters, I
tried every song I could think of that had something to do with
memory or remembering things, like Josh Groban's "Remember" and
"Memory" from "Cats", but to no avail.  Although I dredged up a
*lot* of other forgotten stuff -- I had well over a century's
worth of life to pick from there, after all -- none of it
featured Makoto and her six friends.  The best I could get was a
vague sense of pride combined with loss, which I now felt every
time I looked at the photo.

I had gotten so into the search for the lost memories that if it
hadn't been for another house-elf popping in to remind me about
lunch, it might well have occupied me all the way until nightfall
or after.  I thanked the little thing, and after making sure my
wand and the Toothpick were both securely in their respective
holsters, I took off for the Great Hall.

Fortunately, I had both some time and a good idea where it was
relative to the staff wing of the castle (which wasn't so much a
wing as a small secondary keep which had been joined to the main
keep when the castle bailey had been partially enclosed).  I had
to navigate some of those moving staircases, though.  When a
staircase abruptly pivoted on me and pointed in precisely the
*wrong* direction, I remembered my dive down the stairwell of
Grim Old Number 12 and decided to make myself a shortcut.  Rather
than backtrack and find an alternate route, I just launched
myself into space.

I heard a dozen cries of alarm from the animated paintings lining
the broad well that housed the staircases, but their shrieks and
calls turned to gasps when I caught the first balustrade, used it
as a pivot to redirect my trajectory, and sent myself hurtling at
a stone column, my robes fluttering and snapping around me like a
flag in a gale.

I twisted into a precisely-timed tumble that let me hit the
column feet-first and absorb the impact into my leg muscles
before kicking off again to plunge another forty feet.  There I
reached with one hand for a bit of railing that hung by itself
out over open space.  I caught it and swung completely around it
to launch myself back up into an arc just high enough to bleed
off my excess momentum, and long enough to reach one of the
lowest flights of stairs.  I hit the landing at the top and
pushed back off to somersault over and down its length.  After
two spins I kicked out and dropped into a precise two-point
landing with arms raised and outstretched, my robes dropping down
into perfect order about me.  I grinned to myself; that finish
would have earned me a 10.0 from anyone but the Russian judge.

Around me, the various paintings at the ground level -- their
canvases crowded with the inhabitants of portraits from the
higher floors -- burst into applause and an excited tumult.  I
swept one arm down and into a spinning bow that tried to address
everyone on all sides.

"Thank you, thank you," I said, straightening up.  "I'm here
until June.  Try the veal, and don't forget to tip your artist."
This got me a mix of chuckles and confused natter.  (Apparently
some paintings got out more than others.)  I bowed once more,
then left the stairwell.

*Hm,* I thought as I followed the sound of distant conversation.
*That might make for a pretty good workout.  I'm gonna have to
try that again soon.*

I found the doors to the Great Hall and entered as unobtrusively
as I could, then froze at the sight.

"Great Hall" was no misnomer.  It was an immense room, at least
fifty meters by twenty.  The walls were easily fifteen meters
tall, and were lined with soaring narrow windows made of clear
leaded glass panes.  The effect was not unlike being in a
cathedral, however secular its construction might have been.  In
other ways, it felt very much like McCosh Hall back at Princeton.

Naturally, the long, arching windows and the banners hanging
between them drew my eye upward, where I discovered what I later
learned was the Great Hall's signature feature:  its ceiling.

The ceiling was astounding -- an almost perfect reproduction of
the sky above the castle, with only the faintest outlines of the
rafters visible through it to betray its illusionary nature.  The
summer sun shining down through that image was bright enough to
illuminate the entire room to full daylight levels; although huge
brazier-sconces punctuated the walls between the banks of
windows, they were clearly unneeded, at least on bright, clear
days like this one.

When I finally tore my eyes away from the sight, I noticed that
four long tables lined with benches filled most of the Hall's
marble floor.  The rest was occupied by a raised platform on
which a fifth, much shorter table ran perpendicular to the
others.  And at that table sat the only people who were in the
room besides myself -- at least a dozen witches and wizards.  I
whistled softly -- there was one fellow who, from where I stood
at the opposite end of the room, looked to be at least as big as
Broot and maybe bigger.

For the first time in quite a while, I felt a shiver of
nervousness run through me, and I found myself wishing that I had
found one of the other doors that were much closer to the head
table.  Walking the entire length of the Great Hall to meet these
people suddenly seemed like walking the length of Westminster
Abbey to meet the Queen.  Which I've done, and let me tell you,
it doesn't matter how arrogantly overconfident you are, it's
still very nervous-making.

As was this.

"Do come along, Douglas, or we'll miss the soup course."

I nearly jumped out of my skin.  How the holy hell had Dumbledore
just shown up at my elbow like that?  I should have heard him
approaching, no matter what method he used.  I got my suddenly-
pounding heart under control and muttered, "Certainly,
Headmaster," before trotting after him up the aisle between
long tables two and three.

I began to have some doubts as to how well I'd prepared myself
for this teaching gig.  Well, if I'd thrown myself into the deep
end of the pool without checking the water thoroughly, it would
hardly be the first time.  Time to see how well I could tread
water.

At the end of the aisle, the Headmaster paused, facing the high
table.  Directly opposite him was a large, unoccupied seat, made
of dark-stained oak with red velvet upholstery.  Positioned as it
was in the exact center and looking out over the entire hall, it
was obviously *his* seat.  At the moment I came to a halt next to
him, he nodded to the witches and wizards who filled most of the
seats to either side of his.  "Good afternoon, my friends and
fellow instructors."

This got him an assortment of greetings in return, which I mostly
ignored as I surveyed my new co-workers.  I recognized two, right
off the bat -- Professor McGonagall sat literally at the
Headmaster's right hand, and at the far end of the table on the
opposite side was the sneering goth I'd met the week before at
the Order meeting -- Snipe, Snake, something like that.

Snape, Severus Snape.  That was it.  Potions instructor, if I
recalled correctly.  There were two empty seats between him and
the witch to his right, and I wondered if that was due to her
choice or his.

At the complete other end of the table was the big guy I'd
marveled at from the entrance, and up close he was even more
impressive than I'd thought -- a good three meters tall, at the
very least, and so wide he took up two places' worth of table.
He had that "mountain man" look to him, with a wild mane of black
hair and a beard that faded almost imperceptibly into the dark
"English country gentleman" jacket he was wearing over what
looked like a vintage 18th-century waistcoat, shirt and trousers.

The Headmaster was still speaking.  "I would like to take this
opportunity to introduce you all to our new professor for Defense
Against the Dark Arts, Colonel Douglas Sangnoir."

Recognizing my cue, I bowed to the table.  "It's an honor and a
privilege to join you all on the staff of Hogwarts."

Dumbledore beamed as a chorus of greetings washed over me and
some of the witches at the table smiled or, in a couple cases,
tittered softly.  Then he turned to me.  "Come, Douglas, allow me
to introduce you to your new colleagues."

A moment later and we were up on the dais and in front of the
table.  There, Dumbledore stopped in front of the man-mountain,
who promptly stuck out a paw the size of a dinner plate.

"Rubeus Hagrid," he rumbled as we shook.  "But everyone jus'
calls me Hagrid."  His speech was broad and rural -- Mummerset,
or maybe even Yorkshire.

"Hagrid teaches Care of Magical Creatures," Dumbledore announced.

"That sounds like it must be interesting *and* a lot of fun," I
said as I extricated my hand from his (surprisingly gentle) grip.

"That it is," Hagrid answered with an enthusiastic nod.  "Feel
free ter come by and visit with my babies.  I've got some
darlin's lined up fer the children this year."

"I'll do that," I promised as the Headmaster gently urged me to
the next seat.  The first thing I noticed about the witch sitting
there was her clothing, which would not have looked out of place
on a typical British housewife of the 1950s:  she had on a
sleeveless knit sweater over a print blouse, and I had a feeling
that if she were to stand I'd find her wearing a heavy calf-
length skirt of corduroy or maybe wool.  In addition to making
her the odd woman out in a room full of people mostly wearing
robes, she also wore them in such a way that they felt like a
costume rather than real clothing.

Atop this ensemble was the face of a woman who was sliding,
unwillingly, into old age; the gentle lines forming there were at
odds with her lank strawberry blonde hair.  Upon looking into her
bright brown eyes, though, I saw someone still taking joy in her
life despite it all.

"Miss Charity Burbage," Dumbledore intoned.

"Muggle Studies," she said with a smile as we shook hands.  "I
understand you're Muggle-born *and* from America, Professor
Sangnoir?  A fascinating combination!  Perhaps we can speak
later."

"I'd be delighted," I replied with a smile of my own.

I didn't need the Headmaster's prompting to know what the next
woman's position at Hogwarts was.  Allowing for the robe and
pointed hat, she was as perfect an example of someone embracing a
stereotype as I'd ever seen, from the grey bun in which she wore
her hair to the harlequin-styled glasses to the pinched
expression on her narrow, almost starved-looking face.  "Irma
Pince," Dumbledore announced.  "Hogwarts' librarian."

"Charmed," I declared, all but kissing her hand.  To my surprise
she just blushed and looked away.

The next seat was empty, and as we passed it by, Dumbledore just
murmured, "Professor Binns, our History instructor, has not eaten
with the rest of the staff for many years."

The woman at the next seat snorted.  "Tell him the whole story,
Albus.  Cuthbert is a ghost, it's not like he *needs* to eat."
Her grey hair was short and spiky and her yellow eyes were
absolutely gimlet-like.  She had a confident and direct air about
her, and didn't wait for the Headmaster to introduce her.
"Rolanda Hooch," she announced, seizing my hand and shaking it
vigorously.  "Flying instructor.  You a good man on a broom,
Sangnoir?"

Taken a little aback, but not a little amused, I diplomatically
said, "I have less practice than I'd like, sadly."  *Like, none.*

She tossed her head with a sly, almost smug, little smile.  "Oh,
that's fixable.  Come down to the Quidditch pitch any time you
like and I'll take care of you."  She punctuated that with a
saucy wink.

*I'm sure you will,* I found myself thinking, and resolved not to
find myself in a room alone with this woman.  I liked the tomboy
feel I got off of her, but I had a suspicion that I'd be fending
her off more than I'd be flying.

Dumbledore chuckled as he led me to the next staff member, a
middle-aged woman just starting to go a bit stout, dressed in an
antique-looking British nurse's uniform complete with the little
folded and starched cap on her head.  "Poppy Pomfrey, our
matron."

"Delighted, madam," I said as I shook her hand.  "Please forgive
me when I say that I hope never to have need of your services."

"Oh, I have no doubt you'll drop by the hospital wing sooner or
later, Professor," she said with an apologetic smile.  "Everyone
does."

"In that case," I offered lightly, "I will do my best to make
your workload as light as possible."

She laughed.  "Thank you, Professor.  Would that certain of our
students were as obliging, eh, Headmaster?" she added with a
knowing look at Dumbledore.

"Hmmm.  Quite," he replied, then urged me on to a familiar face
in robes whose emerald hue was a subtle contrast to the
Headmaster's own forest green.  "Minerva McGonagall," he said,
"Transfiguration professor and assistant headmistress, as well as
head of Gryffindor House.  I believe you've met already?"

"Oh, yes," I said, reaching to shake her offered hand.

"Last week," she added.  "I am pleased to see that Charlie's
faith in you was not misplaced."

"Perhaps you should wait until after my first few lessons before
drawing that conclusion," I said with a wink, and she gave me a
very controlled, but clearly amused, little smile in return.

"Perhaps, Professor Sangnoir, perhaps not," she offered.

"You'll be working as much with Minerva as with myself when it
comes to administrative responsibilities, Douglas," the
Headmaster said as he led me past his empty chair and to the one
on its left.  The person in it, I realized, was sitting on a
stack of thick books to reach the table level -- he was a tiny
fellow, under a meter in height.  Although he was elderly in
appearance, he was clearly still very spry, scrambling to his
feet and standing up in his chair in order to reach across the
table and shake my hand.  His hand fit into mine like mine had
into Hagrid's.

"Filius Flitwick," he said in a tremulous, high-pitched voice.
"We've been hearing the most *intriguing* rumors about you,
Professor."

"You have?"  I gave the Headmaster a sidelong glance.  "Have you
been telling tales out of class, Headmaster?" I joked.

Dumbledore ignored my question with an excessively grave dignity
that was belied by the smile on his face.  "Filius is our Charms
master and head of House Ravenclaw, and has quite the colorful
history."  He smiled knowingly.  "I daresay both of you will have
entertaining stories to tell each other."

I glanced at him again, but Dumbledore wasn't giving anything
away.  I gave a little mental shrug and turned back to Flitwick.
"My pleasure, Professor.  I admit I am curious about these
rumors and what they say about me."

"Please, call me Filius," he piped.  "One evening after you get
settled in, perhaps."

"Certainly!" I said.  "I look forward to it."

Filius dropped back onto his book stack looking absolutely
delighted as the Headmaster led me onward to a stern-looking
middle-aged witch with bright, sharp eyes and long red hair.
"Bathsheda Babbling," Dumbledore said.

"Ancient Runes," she said with a smile as I took her proffered
hand.  Her voice and her grip were both strong and confident.
"Good to see the faculty get some new blood."

I chuckled.  "From what I hear, you get an infusion every year."

"Ah," she said, her eyes smiling.  "It's the variety, isn't it?
Always something new to savor and experience."

"I suppose it's good to look at it that way," I replied, shaking
my head.

Next to her was a plump little grey-haired witch who looked like
she'd been in the middle of gardening in her grubbies when lunch
had been called.  Her robes were a bit worn and marked with
ground-in dirt at the knees and elbows, and she had a few strands
of some kind of vine trapped in the fraying seams of her patched
hat.  Her hands and face, though, were scrubbed clean, and her
smile was brilliant and welcoming as she reached across the table
to take my hand.  She didn't so much shake it, though, as simply
hold it while she introduced herself.  "Pomona Sprout,
Herbology."

"My pleasure, Professor," I said, bowing over her hand.

She giggled girlishly.  "Come now, you can call me Pomona.  We're
all equals here."

"Pomona is, in addition to our Herbology professor, head of
Hufflepuff House," Dumbledore offered as I retrieved my hand.

I looked over at him.  "Yes, I'm going to need to learn more
about the house system you have here."

"Oh, we'll see to that soon enough, Douglas," he replied as he
led me to a tall, thin witch of indeterminate age, who sat ram-
rod straight and nodded to me with a slight smile on her sharp-
featured face.  "Septima Vector," Dumbledore said as I took her
hand.

"Arithmancy," she said in precise, cultured tones.  "I see to it
that those students with the interest and aptitude have a proper
grounding in the mathematical foundation of all modern magic."

"That's very much an interest of mine," I said, not untruly.  I
had an interest in *all* systems of magic -- a consequence of
having had to learn about the underlying physics of magic in
order to understand my own metagift, which followed no rules but
its own.  If Arithmancy was ultimately at the root of the system
by which these people organized and controlled their magic, I
definitely wanted to learn more about it.  "I'd love to sit in on
some of your classes if you don't mind."

That slight smile of hers grew infinitesimally larger.  "I would
be most pleased if you did, Professor."

I returned it with a smile of my own.  "After I get an idea of my
own schedule, I'll talk to you about what would be the most
convenient for both of us."

"Very good," she said with a slight nod.

I turned from her to the next place at the table, where sat
another tall, thin witch.  But where Professor Vector was drawn
entirely in classic Celtic lines, her left-hand companion's
African heritage was a stark contrast.  Her skin was such a deep
black that I suspected her of being an immigrant until she
introduced herself in a perfectly native Mancunian accent.
"Aurora Sinistra," she said, all but staring me down as I mimed
a bow over her outstretched hand.  As I did, I noticed the fabric
of her olive-colored robes was much heavier than that of the
other professors'.

"Aurora is our professor of Astronomy," the Headmaster informed
me.  Ah.  That explained the robes.  She was probably on the
roof or in an unheated observatory most nights and needed it for
the warmth.  I knew from my experience at Madam Malkin's that
there were charms, both permanent and temporary, for that kind of
thing.  I'd also learned, though, that the more substantial the
clothing on which they were cast, the better they performed and
the longer they lasted.  Hm.  I wouldn't be surprised if she had
a matching set of gloves and earmuffs, possibly stashed inside
that tall pointed hat of hers.  The northern Scottish nights had
to be bitter, even in August.

"I'm curious," I said, straightening up.  "Do your classes
include astrological elements as well as astronomical?"

"No," Sinistra replied, drawing it out almost into a snarl.  "I
leave astrological matters to... Divination."  She glanced
sidelong at the empty seat next to her.

"Ah, yes," the Headmaster interjected quickly, all but dragging
me past it and the empty place next to it to Snape's position at
the very end.  "Our Divination professor, Sybill Trelawney, seems
to be ... indisposed at the moment," he said, glancing
momentarily where she obviously should have been sitting.

A round of coughs and faint sounds of obvious disapproval
suddenly swept across the table, and I got the distinct
impression that the rest of the staff felt that if Professor
Trelawney was indisposed, it was self-inflicted in some manner.

Uh-*huh*.

A gentle hand on my shoulder insistently guided me to a spot in
front of the last seat.  "I'm sure you remember our Potions
master, Severus Snape," Dumbledore said.  I certainly did -- and
as far as I could tell, Snape had neither changed his black robes
nor washed his lank, shoulder-length black hair since the
previous week, making recognition pathetically easy even if his
large, hooked nose, sallow skin and perpetual sour expression
hadn't been enough to identify him all by themselves.

"Indeed I do," I said with a nod toward that worthy.  Snape
seemed to be in some kind of snit, though, as he did not even
acknowledge that we were standing in front of him.

The Headmaster waited for a moment for any kind of response, then
shook his head.  "Ah.  Yes, then.  Douglas, if you would please
take the seat next to Severus, we shall begin our luncheon."

"Of course," I replied.  As he made his way over to his big fancy
chair, I took the somewhat less ornate seat he'd indicated.  I
figured I'd give it another try.  "Professor Snape," I said
congenially as I settled in.  "Good to see you again."

Apparently, he wasn't willing to ignore being directly addressed.
He gave me a half-lidded inspection, then sneered, "Likewise,"
before turning his attention completely away from me.

Well, geeze, love you too, guy.  Who pissed in *your* Wheaties
this morning?

The Headmaster, now regally ensconced on his throne, coughed
dramatically and the low murmur of conversation between the other
professors faded away.  "Since all who appear to be joining us
for luncheon are here, let us begin."  He clapped his hands.

Plates and dishes began appearing on the table before each of us,
starting with bowls of a dark, meaty broth that gave off a
delightful beefy scent.  Watching my new colleagues out of the
corners of my eyes in order to get a clue about the table
etiquette around here, I leaned forward and took a deeper breath
and savored the aroma.

Around me the other professors were starting to dig in, so I
picked up my spoon and had at it.

We were about halfway through the sandwich course when a gypsy
scarecrow with coke-bottle glasses staggered into the Great
Hall through one of the side doors.  She paused there, swaying,
and held up one scrawny hand as though she were about to bless us
all.  "I know," she said in a hollow, wobbly tone, "that I am
late for our repast, but I have been communing with the great
*BEYOND*!"

Next to me, Snape hissed, "Oh, dear bloody *Merlin*."

"Good to see you finally join us, Sybill," Flitwick piped up.
"How was your morning?"  Ah.  So this was the Divination teacher.
And I'd thought Irma Pince was embracing a stereotype -- Sybill
Trelawney looked like she'd robbed a New Age store at wandpoint
and worn all her ill-gotten gains out the door.

Where some of the other witches at the table were slender, she
was outright gawky and stick-thin.  Coupled with a fright-wig
shock of dishwater-colored hair, it made her look like nothing so
much as an animated rag mop in a robe and shawl, complete with
two large cartoon eyes in the form of the immense, thick glasses
she wore.  All she needed was a tie-dyed muumuu, and she'd've
been a dead ringer for just about every crystal dweeb I'd ever
met who thought enough cheap jewelry, smoky quartz and perfumed
candles would give them psionic metagifts.

On the other side of the Headmaster, Professor McGonagall
muttered something that either because of its low volume or its
extreme Scottishness (or both) was unintelligible.  Whatever it
was, though, it certainly didn't sound complimentary.

"My morning?"  Sybill swayed a bit more, her hands drifting
around her like drunken butterflies on silken tethers.  "My
morning has revealed secrets -- *great* secrets! -- to me!
Concepts *far* beyond the comprehension of mere mortals!"

To my right, Professor Sinistra sniffed derisively but didn't say
anything.  To my left, Professor Snape was busy turning his fork
into an origami sculpture.  For my part, I suppressed the urge to
chuckle at her theatrics, instead murmuring, "Drama queen much?"
That earned me a startled glance from Snape, who quickly looked
away again while emitting a strangled cough that *just* might
have been a single, stifled laugh.

*So there *is* a human being in there somewhere,* I thought.

"Please do take your seat, Sybill," Headmaster Dumbledore
invited, although his jovial tones sounded just a *little* bit
strained.  "We have not yet finished."

Cut short before she could launch into another speech, Professor
Trelawney blinked, then straightened up.  "Of course," she said
in softer, less overblown tones.  She then drifted unevenly up
the stairs of the dais and to her seat.  There she noticed me for
the first time, stopped cold, and stared wide-eyed.  As she stood
there, trembling violently and emitting a faint scent of sherry,
I looked up at her and (against my better judgment) stuck out my
hand.

"Doug Sangnoir," I said.  "New professor of Defense.  Delighted
to meet you."  Which I wasn't, not really, not after seeing her
entrance, but I'd never *say* that.  I have *some* tact.

Not a lot, but *some*.  Even Hexe says so.  However reluctantly.

Slowly, tentatively, Trelawney took my hand, but instead of
shaking it, she held it in one of hers.  Turning it to face
upwards, she started tracing the lines on my palm with her right
forefinger.  She murmured unintelligibly to herself for several
seconds before the other professors began to shift uncomfortably
in their seats at her behavior.

"Sybill," Professor McGonagall offered in chilly, if diplomatic,
tones that had lost all trace of Scottishness.  "Why don't you
sit down and let Professor Sangnoir finish his meal?"

Sybill seemed not to have heard her as she continued a long, slow
trace of one line across my palm, intensely studying every
millimeter of it.  Just as Dumbledore coughed warningly, though,
her head snapped up and tried to catch my eyes with hers -- an
unsuccessful task given those glasses.  "Oh, my dear, you have
the *most* extraordinary life line," she breathed, releasing me
and then patting me on the cheek.  "Death knows you of old, and
holds you lovingly in her hand..." she murmured before turning
abruptly and plopping herself into her seat.  The first few
courses all appeared at once before her.

"What do we have today for... Ah! Watercress sandwiches!" she
said, then dove into one, seemingly forgetting me and everything
else.

I looked across her at Sinistra, who simply rolled her eyes and
shook her head.  I glanced the other direction at Snape, who was
engaged in ignoring the entire room as he unfolded his fork.

"Um.  Right," I murmured, completely taken aback.

                               * * *

Lunch lasted another three courses and forty-five minutes.  After
the shock effect of Professor Trelawney's entrance and various
pronouncements had faded away, conversation began to rise between
the various professors once more.

I, of course, did not take part.  Not because I was disinclined
to speak with my new colleagues.  No, it was because I had been
wedged between the oblivious Trelawney, who focused entirely on
her meal (and the occasional crystal she drew from the depths of
her robes), and the Great Stone Face, who looked like he wished
everyone else in the room would suddenly die of massive cerebral
hemorrhages.

Oh yeah, I could already tell this early that Severus Snape was
*destined* to replace Charlie Weasley as my new rough-and-tumble
palling-around buddy.

And if you believe that, I have a domed undersea habitat in the
Gobi to sell you.

When finally we'd all finished eating, the Headmaster clapped his
hands and the dishes and utensils vanished from the table.
"Well, that was quite delicious," he said, standing.  Then he
turned to me.  "Douglas, if you'd accompany me to my office, we
have a few final matters, mostly of paperwork, to settle before
your tenure here is completely official."  He then turned his
grandfatherly gaze to the rest of the table.  "If the Heads of
the Houses could join us, as well...?" he asked, getting four
nods in return (three friendly, one curt -- guess which).

                               * * *

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Wednesday, August 18,
1995, 2:00 PM

The paperwork was not, as it turned out, very onerous.
Considering the milieu, it was actually rather mundane -- a very
basic employment contract, a form arranging direct deposit of my
pay (to my Gringotts vault, natch), a consent form that permitted
Madam Pomfrey to perform emergency medical procedures on my
person if needed, stuff like that.  It took maybe ten or fifteen
minutes to read and sign them all, they were all that simple and
direct.

I couldn't decide if that meant the Wizarding World was *ahead*
or *behind* the mundane world when it came to legalese.

Maybe both.

Once all that was done, there was a little ritual to key me into
the school's ward schema.  I'd been operating under "guest"
privileges up until that point, but once I'd been "introduced" to
Hogwarts, though, I was able to direct the school defenses to a
limited degree, send brief messages to other teachers through the
school's magic, add and deduct house points, and even declare an
emergency lockdown of the entire castle if needed.  (All of which
and more I learned from a little book Professor McGonagall gave
me later.)

And then there was the *other* ritual, which was the reason that
all four Heads of House were there.

"Since its Founding," the Headmaster intoned ceremoniously, "the
school -- or rather, the student body -- has been divided into
four Houses.  Each house is more than just a dormitory; it is a
family of sorts, and a home, and a heritage.  Many Hogwarts
graduates continue to identify themselves by their House
throughout their adult lives."

I nodded in understanding.  "I'm familiar with that *kind* of
system, if not your specific setup -- similar arrangements are
not all that uncommon among British boarding schools in the non-
magical world."

He beamed at me.  "Quite so.  In fact, some wizards familiar
with both worlds hold that Hogwarts' Houses were the inspiration
for such systems in the Muggle world."  He folded his hands
before himself and continued.  "At the time the school was
established, the four Founders disagreed on what traits made for
the best wizards.  They created the Houses so that each of them
could gather to themselves their 'ideal' students, selected for
possessing the attributes which each Founder valued above all
others."

"And those were?" I asked as he stood and stepped around his
big chair to the bookcase behind it.

"Godric Gryffindor valued bravery and boldness," the Headmaster
replied without looking back at me.  I glanced at Minerva, who
seemed to stand a little taller at that moment.  "His brother in
arms, Salazar Slytherin, favored pure wizarding heritage along
with cunning and ambition," he went on, reaching up to the top
shelf.  I hazarded a look over at Snape, whose demeanor changed
not a hair.

"Rowena Ravenclaw preferred the intelligent and quick of wit,"
Dumbledore went on as he took down the item he was looking for.
Filius seemed to brighten, and (dare I say it?) look a little
smug at that.  "And finally, Helga Hufflepuff sought out the most
loyal and dedicated students," he concluded, turning around and
stepping back to his desk as Pomona nodded all but imperceptibly.

"Each September we Sort the incoming first-year students into
the four Houses of Hogwarts by which of these qualities seem
most prominent in their characters," he declared solemnly.

"Doesn't that end up pigeon-holing a kid for life, given how
influential the school is?" I objected.  This set off a bit of
uncomfortable shifting among three of the four Heads.  "I'd hope
that the system allows for a kid to grow and change as he gets
older."

"The point has been raised before," the Headmaster acknowledged,
"but the House system has worked well enough for the past
thousand years that there is no great outcry to upset Tradition."

I swear he said that word with such a pronounced Capital Letter
that I half-expected to hear the people of Anatevka sing it along
with him.  "Right," I said after a moment.  "So... what does this
have to do with me?"

Dumbledore smiled in a broad, avuncular way.  "Why, you need to
be Sorted, as well.  Which we do with this," he continued,
holding out the item he had retrieved from the bookcase -- a
pointed leather hat so old and worn that it looked about ready to
fall apart.  "Go ahead.  Put it on."

A quick dip into mage sight revealed the complicated enchantment
that permeated the thing, so complicated in fact that I couldn't
figure out just what it did.  I gave the Headmaster a dubious
look, not taken in by the whole "twinkling eyes I'm-just-an-
eccentric-old-man" act.  "You're kidding."  I gave the hat a
dubious look as well, and had the oddest sensation that it was
returning the favor.

Dumbledore shook his head. "Not at all, Douglas.  Every staff
member at Hogwarts must have at least a nominal House
affiliation."  He shrugged.  "At the very least to give us an
idea who can act as a representative of each House in ... unusual
circumstances."

I caught myself about to scowl in a very Skuld-like manner and
aborted the expression.  I sighed, though, and held out my hand.
"If I must."

Dumbledore just smiled and silently extended the Sorting Hat
again.  Very carefully, more than half-afraid it would fall
apart in my grasp, I took it from him.

"Well, what have we here?"  A dry, whispery voice echoed in my
mind as soon as I'd plopped the thing onto my head.  Ah.  Well,
that explained at least part of the complexity of the enchantment
I'd seen.

"Funny," I thought back at it.  "I was about to say the same
thing.  I'm used to talking to my headgear, but having it hold
its own in conversation is a new experience for me."

I sensed, rather than heard, its amusement.  "A new teacher, are
you?  But not a Hogwarts alumnus.  Interesting.  Well, well,
where shall I put you?"  It fell silent for a  moment and I could
feel the depth of its concentration.  "Hmmm.  Ambitious you
aren't, not for power, but you are cunning enough for two, enjoy
glory for its own sake despite disparaging it, and there is blood
on your hands.  Slytherin could make use of you."

It seemed to shift and settle itself differently on my head.
"And yet you are a hero, too."

"I wouldn't say so.  I'm a soldier, I just do my job."

Its chuckle, like the sound of old, creaking leather, echoed
between my ears.  "Eyes always ahead, you never know what it is
you have done, do you?  Trust me, young man, I see the trail of a
hero behind you.  Gryffindor is as good a choice."

"Whatever you say, Hat."

"But you also have a mind of extraordinary power, if not always
of sufficient focus or wisdom.  Were you still a student,
Ravenclaw would sharpen your wits."

I sighed.  "Is there a point to this?  Or an end?"

"And loyalty in spades," it went on, ignoring me this time.  "To
friends, to wife, to commander, to those whom you take under your
wing and to those who take *you* in.  You would gladly die in
their defense.  You could show Hufflepuff a thing or two, I'd
wager."

"So I belong everywhere.  Maybe you should make up a new house
just for me."

Another creaky chuckle.  "Maybe I should.  That'd stand
Dumbledore's beard on end!  Well, Colonel Sangnoir, it's a hard
decision, a hard one indeed.  But I've taken your measure, and
read your life, and it is my belief that you belong in...

"SPARKLYPOO!"

Huh?

"Just kidding.  Hufflepuff!" it shouted out loud.

I sat there for a moment, gazing up at the underside of the Hat's
brim with what I was later told was a profoundly bemused look on
my face.  "Ooooookay, then," I finally said as I swiped the Hat
off my head and flipped it back into the Headmaster's hands with
a little bow.  "So... Hufflepuff it is."

Pomona broke ranks with the other Heads and took my hands in
hers.  "Welcome to our House, Douglas," she said, beaming.  "I
trust you will do well by my badgers should matters fall out
such that they are in your hands."

"Badgers?" I asked.

"Ah, yes."  She chuckled softly.  "The mascot of our house is
the badger."

"Ah, I see."  Now that I thought about it, hadn't some of the
paperwork had a coat of arms on it?  Quarterly, different
tinctures, an animal in each, one of which could have been a
badger.  In that case, the other three probably were the mascots
of the other houses.

Behind her, Filius and Minerva were smiling, but already turning
for the door.  Snape regarded me with what I would later
categorize as his Standard Expression Number Four (the
Contemptuous Sneer), before he too spun on his heel and exited
the Headmaster's office.

"Well, I trust it won't ever come down to that," I replied to
Pomona, "but if it does, I swear to you that I will do my best,
whatever the situation."

"Of course you will, dear," she replied, smiling even wider.
"Of course you will."  She released my hands.  "Why don't you
come back with me to the greenhouses and we'll discuss a bit more
what it means to be part of Hufflepuff."

"Before you do," the Headmaster -- about whom I had completely
forgotten -- interjected.  I turned back to him.

"Yes, sir?"

He had returned to his seat behind the desk and looked positively
regal -- the aging King Arthur on his throne, almost.  "We still
need to speak of your class schedule and your duties outside of
the classroom."

"Oh, pish."  Pomona gave a dismissive little wave.  "I can cover
all that with him, Albus.  And what I can't, Minerva can."

He nodded in agreement.  "Quite so, Pomona.  I'll leave him to
your tender mercies, then.  However, Douglas, we need to arrange
our first meeting about our joint research project."

I took his meaning immediately -- the research into how to get me
home.  "Of course."  I grinned.  "I appear to be reasonably free
for much of the next few days.  Whatever's convenient for you,
sir."

"Very well, then.  Shall we meet, say, tomorrow afternoon at
one?"  He sat back and clasped his hands on the desk in front of
himself.

"Works for me.  One tomorrow it is."  Which brought to mind one
of my offers to the Headmaster.   "That reminds me, sir, I also
need to start that parallel project, my investigations into that
persistent problem of yours?"  I would have said outright that I
intended to start gathering intelligence on Voldemort, but the
Headmaster's evasive phrasing suggested that Pomona wasn't
exactly cleared for the information.

"Ah, yes."  He pursed his lips.  "Go right ahead, my boy.  If
you need anything that a house-elf cannot bring you upon request,
simply ask me.  Likewise, if your investigations require you to
leave the school grounds, I ask that you inform myself or
Minerva."

"Certainly," I said with a little nod.  This was very cool.  I
had some definite -- and unusual -- ideas about how I wanted to
approach my intelligence-gathering, and he'd pretty much just
given me carte blanche.  "If there's nothing more, Headmaster,
then I'll see you at dinner."

I turned back to Pomona, who wore an amused and tolerant smile,
and offered her my arm.  "Why, thank you!" she declared with a
chuckle, and threaded her arm through mine.  We turned toward the
door.

"Douglas?" the Headmaster called before we had left the room.

I looked back over my shoulder.  "Sir?"

He looked almost pained.  "We are all colleagues here.  You can
call me 'Albus', you know."

I shook my head, smiling sheepishly.  "Sorry, force of habit.
You're nothing like my commanding officer, but you radiate much
the same... presence.  I'll try to shift gears... Albus."

His eyes twinkled again at that.  "I am very glad to hear it,
Douglas.  Now, off with the two of you."  He made a shooing
gesture, chuckling.

Pomona and I shared a smile.  "Far be it from us to disobey a
direct order from the Headmaster," I murmured.

"No, that would never do," she replied.

And chuckling together, we left Dumbledore's office.

                               * * *

Once we were down the stone escalator and in a corridor proper,
Pomona turned to me and said, "While we make our way to the
greenhouses..."

"Yes?" I said with a raised eyebrow.

She smirked, just a little.  "I've heard the most *astounding*
rumor about an encounter between you and a dragon?"

I rolled my eyes.  If I ever found out who was spreading that
story around...

"Well," I said as the two of us made our way to the central
staircase, "It started when I crash-landed in Romania..."

                               * * *

I had to tell the story of how I punched out a dragon another
half-dozen times during the course of my first week at Hogwarts.
The rumor of my martial prowess seemed to escalate with each
person who wanted to know the "whole story".  Dear gods in
heaven, you would think knocking a dragon unconscious with one
blow would be a wild enough story, but *no*.  By the last
repetition, I had to convince my listener that I did *not* stare
down an entire herd of berserking dragons and cow them into
submission with a single sharp word.  No matter how freaking
awesome it made me seem.

I swear, though, certain educators whose names I will not mention
here seemed to be disappointed that I had only done a *small*
impossible thing instead of an *ungodly* impossible thing.

You just can't satisfy some people.

All in all, the only ones who did not press me for the story were
Snape and Trelawney.  For which I was most grateful.

Anyway.

During that first week I handed off my book list to a grateful
Minerva and got my teaching schedule (and employee manual) in
exchange, learned of my other duties besides teaching (overseeing
detentions, patrolling the halls at night, office hours between
classes, stuff like that), and was warned at least three times of
the "curse" on my position.  (I thanked the kind souls who warned
me, but told them I had it handled.)

Oh, and I began teaching Albus what I knew about dimensional
magics.

This latter required I learn more about how Wizarding magic
worked, so I was spending my mornings studying Arithmancy -- and
pestering Septima with my questions -- so that I could translate
what *I* knew into terms Albus would recognize and relate to.
This is *not* to say that he was stupid -- far from it.  It's
just that we spoke completely different languages when it came to
magic.

Let me explain.  Magic at its deepest, most basic level is a
fundamental force of nature which can, when directed, change the
way *other* fundamental aspects of space-time behave, including
those which are loosely and fuzzily described as "spiritual".
In order to direct this force, you need two things -- a genetic
trait which allows you to perceive and manipulate that force, and
a system which abstracts and organizes the process of using that
force.

The trait is the magegift.  It's like being born with eyes and
hands for magic.

The system is something called a magical tradition.  (Or a school
of magic, or a style, or any of a dozen similar terms.)  It is a
combination of knowledge, skills, techniques, and shortcuts which
allow a practitioner to manipulate mana and use it to accomplish
certain tasks.  A system always includes a model of what magic is
and how it behaves, which defines what is and isn't possible with
the methods available to that system.  The model does not need to
be "true" as long as it is internally consistent and maps somehow
onto the lower-level reality of magic; different traditions can
and do have mutually contradictory models, all of which work.
It's sort of like how geocentric astronomy is nothing like
reality, but still functions just fine for the purpose of
navigation on both land and sea.

The catch is, while the model empowers you to do what it says is
possible, it also restricts you with what it says is
*impossible*.  Of course, the model can be changed, but until the
twentieth century this was a slow, trial-and-error process -- and
even if a revised model worked, sometimes there was a cultural or
religious context that would not allow it to be implemented.
(For example:  ask a Catholic exorcist what he thinks about
grafting some Voudoun onto his bell-book-and-candle system to
give it a bit more *ooomph*.  Be prepared to run.)

Anyway, along about 1949 a small group of theoretical physicists
scattered among several colleges along the East Coast of the
United States started wondering *why* there were dozens -- hell,
*hundreds* -- of different ways to do magic, and no two of them
agreed on more than a couple axioms or principles.  Working with
some equally-curious mages from the same colleges and several
different traditions, they figured out that no single magical
system actually described the objective reality of magic -- they
just provided toolkits to *use* that reality.  With that
breakthrough made, they began to work backwards from the various
systems to figure out just *what* that objective reality actually
*was*.

The result was the creation by 1974 of a Unified Theory of Magic.
(Which turned out to be the missing chunk of the Grand Unified
Theory that made the whole thing work, but that's neither here
nor there at the moment.)  The UTM by itself wasn't a magical
system, but it described how magical systems *worked* from the
ground up, and how they could be designed and implemented.  And
since no science can be done without mathematics, the UTM had an
entire branch of math of its own -- along with a notation system
that turned out to be very useful not only for quantifying
systems, but also for defining magical techniques -- "spells" --
in a system-neutral manner.

To put it in other terms:  Given several dozen programming
languages *without* their compilers, the researchers were able to
deduce the existence of and derive the complete instruction set
for the CPU's machine language.  And in the process developed a
tool that could create *new* programming languages for that CPU.

Now here's where I come in.  In 1989, Dwimanor's expanding
mastery of his magical tradition led him to notice that I was
radiating magic *all the freaking time*.  Since according to
everything we knew at that point I was "just" a mutant, suffice
it to say that he was more than a little curious about this.  We
subsequently spent many, *many* hours in the Mansion's
Thaumodynamics laboratory to find out what was really up with my
metatalents.

We finally determined that while yes, I tested positive as a
mutant, I was also a *mage*, and that one of my mutations --
overshadowed by my more obvious metafunctions and heretofore
unnoticed -- was to my magegift.  And as a result, I was perhaps
the only *instinctive* practitioner of a magical system among all
of Earth's higher primates.

Now at that point in my career, I'd managed reasonably well with
a set of stopgaps and workarounds which let me live something
that at least looked like a normal life while still serving as a
junior member of the Warriors.  But I wanted something more than
workarounds and make-do -- I wanted *mastery* of my metagifts in
a way that the other Warriors possessed but which had up to that
time eluded me.

A fellow engineer despite his mystic vocation, Dwim pointed me at
the body of work that had built up around the UTM and suggested
that I approach it as a systems analysis problem -- regard my
broken magegift as a piece of undocumented software whose
operation and functioning needed to be thoroughly understood, but
which could not simply be *stopped* and decompiled.  Surely I was
up to that kind of challenge?

Well, after I told him not to call me "Shirley", that's precisely
what I did.  It took me about five months, during which I learned
not only the UTM, its mathematics, and its notation, but the
basics of practically every style of magic being practiced
anywhere on Earth, in the realms of the Fae, and among a couple
of alien civilizations that we had contact with.  (And I learned
enough about some of the bigger traditions to qualify me as an
archmage a dozen times over if I could only *use* that knowledge
as any other mage-gifted could.)

When I was done, I understood thoroughly how my metatalent
worked, what my limits *really* were, and how to make an accurate
guess at the effect a new song might give me.  I gained a better
control over the chaos factor of my field, making my day-to-day
life a little easier.  I wasn't a master of my personal magic,
not like Dwim was of his, but I was a whole hell of a lot closer
to it than I had been -- and now had a hope of actually reaching
it.

(And as a second-order consequence of my studies, the resulting
improvements in my control over my day-to-day life gave me the
confidence to approach Maggie romantically.  We'd've never
started dating, let alone gotten married, if I hadn't known and
*believed* I could get close to her without accidentally
vaporizing her clothes.  Or worse, her flesh.)

So that's how I acquired a depth and breadth of knowledge in both
theoretical and practical magic that ranked me as one of the top
25 or so experts in those fields around the world -- much to the
surprise of anyone who mistook my public persona for the full
extent of my character.

Back to Hogwarts.  I knew a few things about inter-dimensional
magics -- both theory and practical.  Not a lot -- I hadn't had a
need for it before my exile.  But enough.  Unfortunately for
Albus, I only knew it in terms of either the Unified Theory of
Magic or the couple of traditions that made more than occasional
use of it.

None of which would work for wand-using Wizarding magic-users.  I
needed to "decompile" the Wizarding tradition, analyzing its
model and building a description of its functionality in UTM
notation.  Once I did that, I could "translate" what I knew into
terms that would make sense to and, more importantly, *work* for
a wand-wizard.  But before I could get that far, I actually had
to understand the underpinnings of wand-magic -- not how to cast
the individual spells, but *how* and *why* those spells worked.
And that's where the Arithmancy came in.

That first week was a major learning experience all around.  I
was learning the foundations of wand-magic.  I was teaching
Albus what the UTM and its notation were all about, so *he* could
pass on to *me* what he knew or could find out about Wizarding
dimensional magic.  And Septima Vector had noticed the notes I'd
taken in UTM notation and gotten curious.  I passed it off as my
own work, purely an ad hoc system of abbreviations and whatnot,
but she insisted on being taught -- and bribed me with some
intense graduate-level tutoring sessions in Arithmancy that later
turned out to be critical to my understanding of the topic.

There was only one thing I hadn't managed to accomplish before
the students finally showed up.  I'd yet to start my intelligence
gathering on ol' Flight-of-Emo.  I'd barely had a chance to
sketch out a plan of action.

                               * * *

Oh, yeah.  One other thing of note -- I met most of the ghosts of
Hogwarts around the same time.  The first was the so-called "Fat
Friar", whom I encountered in the Hufflepuff common room while
Pomona showed me around that first afternoon, and who heartily
welcomed me to his house.

I ran into the other House ghosts at dinner that same evening.
And a charming bunch they were.

I'm not being sarcastic -- I spent a fair fraction of that first
dinner conversing with all four of them, singly and in small
groups.  Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington was quite the raconteur
and despite his dour appearance the "Bloody Baron" was a ready
conversationalist -- *much* more so than Professor Snape or Argus
Filch were -- once you found the right topics to engage him.  The
Friar was already voluble and didn't need prompting to join in a
merry chat.

Even the melancholy Grey Lady (who I was warned spoke rarely if
at all) joined me in a brief discussion of magical theory.  Okay,
I'll admit I did all the real talking, and her responses were
limited almost entirely to facial expressions, gestures, and nods
and shakes of her head.  But by weaving the occasional question
through what would otherwise have been a monologue on my part, I
managed to tease the odd detail about herself from the all-but-
silent spirit.  And my views and experiences turned out to be of
interest to her -- the Ravenclaw ghost was a frequent visitor to
both my classroom and my private quarters over the next few
months.  In private, on topics that piqued her intellect, she
proved considerably less laconic.

I never did learn very much about the Grey Lady, let alone what
had led to the sorrowful state in which she spent her afterlife.
But I like to think that I helped ease its weight on her soul
those times we spent in discussion of magic and magical theory.

And then there was the fifth "ghost" I met that first day.  It
was well after dinner, and not long after the late Northern
Scotland sunset.  Pomona, still serving in her self-appointed
role as tour guide, was accompanying me back to the faculty wing.
We were in a long corridor on the third floor, taking what Pomona
had promised me was a shortcut between the Main Hall and our
quarters, when what could only have been a water balloon smacked
me in the back, right between my shoulders.  The splash soaked me
from the top of my head to my waist, and was accompanied by a
gale of high-pitched, hyena-like laughter.

"Peeves!" Pomona snarled, whipping out her wand as she spun to
face our rear.  I'd beaten her, though, and before she was even
moving had already turned around to spot a tiny humanoid figure
high in the air half-way down the corridor.  It was the source of
the laughter, rolling and kicking as though it were lying on flat
ground.

"And what, may I ask, are *you*?" I muttered.

"He's Hogwarts' poltergeist," Pomona muttered.

I raised an eyebrow.  "A *physical* poltergeist with an actual
personality?"

"Such as it is."  She raised her wand to point at the mannikin.
"Peeves, Professor Sangnoir is *not*..."  I put my hand on hers
before she could tell it (him?) what I wasn't.

"Here, let me."  I released her hand and began approaching the
cackling creature on a slow, curving path, studying it as I did.
Obviously not the kind of poltergeist I was used to, not with an
actual humanoid form.  I wondered if it were pseudo-solid or
more ghostlike.

"Oooooh, got'im good, Peevsie did," the tiny man cackled and
howled once more in laughter.  "Oh, but he's trying to sneak up
on Peeves, he is," he added, sitting up straight and watching me
with a sly look that promised immediate mischief.

"Hello, there, Peeves," I said in exactly the same tones I would
use to tell a costumed extremist to put down the bomb.  "Do you
know who I am?" I asked, more to take up time as I got closer
than for any other reason, and shifted into mage sight as I did.

"New Defense professor, he is," Peeves said smugly.  "Like all
the others, here today and gone tomorrow."  He narrowed his eyes
at me.  "Peeves isn't afraid of professors, oh no."

Under mage sight, Peeves bore a distinct resemblance to Marller's
little winged buddy Senbei.  Not the same type of creature, but
certainly of the same *order* -- a minor Celestial of some sort,
*very* minor.  A free imp, maybe?  Or some other kind of servitor
creature from one of the other pantheons, set loose by design or
accident?

Well, then.

I dropped back into normal sight and retrieved the Toothpick from
its holster on my belt, willing it to radiate a little of its
deadly Celestial power.  As soon as it came into sight, Peeves
froze and hung motionless in midair.  "Do you know what I have in
my hand, Peeves?"

Peeves, eyes wide, nodded very slowly.  "Peeves sees, Peeves
knows," he whispered.  I think the little creature had forgotten
that he could escape me pretty easily had he had a mind to.

"I'll make you a deal, Peeves," I said, giving him as sharklike a
smile as I could manage.  "You leave me alone, and I'll leave you
alone.  You don't want me to decide you're *Dark*, now, do you?
I'd have to do something about a Dark creature in Hogwarts, after
all."

"Agreed!" Peeves shrieked, suddenly whirling and thrashing about
in agitation.  "Peeves leaves the Defense professor alone if the
Defense professor leaves Peeves alone!"

"As long as you don't harm anyone, I agree, too," I said, sliding
the Toothpick back into its holster.

That qualifier seemed to have insulted the imp.  Peeves stood up
straight and assumed an almost dignified air.  "Peeves does not
harm!  Peeves annoys, irritates, inconveniences, teases, taunts,
and disrupts, but *never* harms."

I blinked.  "Oh.  Well, okay, then."

Peeves nodded once at me, then turned and sailed off, passing
with a wet squelch through a nearby wall and out of sight.

I waited a moment more to see if he would come back with some
final snappy little line, but no, he didn't.  I shrugged and
turned back to Pomona, who was watching me with a somewhat
shocked look on her face.

I held out my arm to her.  "Shall we?" I asked.  "I need to get
out of these wet things."

Absently, she slid her arm through mine while asking, "How...
*what* did you do?  Only the Bloody Baron has been able to make
Peeves behave before now."

I smiled, more to myself than at her.  "Believe me, Pomona.  No
one in their right minds, not even a poltergeist, wants to make
me his enemy."

                               * * *

The British Ministry of Magic, London, UK.  Thursday, August 19,
1995, 9:13 AM

"I thought you were going to take care of this Sangnoir,
Dolores!" Cornelius Fudge cried.  "You said you would convince
him not to take the blasted professorship!"  These meetings in
the Minister's office on the Potter matter and its attendant
complications were getting longer and more frequent, and the
Minister was starting to regret leaving the task in Dolores
Umbridge's hands.

Especially as no information was coming out of the Department of
Mysteries about the Potter prophecy.  Although he'd never admit
it aloud, the coincidence between Potter's announcement of
Lord... Lord Thingy's return and the disaster in the Hall of
Prophecy was beginning to worry him.  If Potter had been less of
a political liability, Fudge would have had him brought in to
settle the matter weeks ago, just as the Unspeakables had
requested.  But between his very public pronouncements and
Dolores' insistence that the boy had to be silenced, the Minister
had to settle for the Department's current indirect methods --
which were returning nothing of use.

"Unfortunately, Minister, my representatives proved not to be
convincing enough to dissuade him," Dolores Umbridge simpered at
him.  Inwardly, she scowled.  Bad enough that Dumbledore had been
able to find a new Defense professor, but worse, unlike most of
the recent crop, this one was not just competent but very much
so.  At least that's what the reports filed by the investigating
Aurors with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement suggested.
That would make him even harder to oust.  And made him far more
dangerous to the Ministry.

Fudge shook his head and settled heavily into his seat behind
the desk.  "I want you to discharge those representatives, then,
Dolores.  If they can't do a simple job like remind a British
wizard of his duty to his nation..."

"Well, that seems to be part of the problem," Dolores objected in
as sickly-sweet a voice as she could manage.  "It turns out that
Sangnoir *isn't* a British wizard."  Her voice and expression
both went flat.  "He's an American."

Fudge's eyes widened.  "An... an *American*?  In *Hogwarts*?  Oh,
dear!"  He looked ready to faint.

"Now, now, Cornelius," Dolores cajoled.  "Not *all* Americans are
outlaws and thugs, regardless of what you've heard.  I'm sure
Sangnoir is *perfectly* law-abiding.  We just need to find the
right law to *make* him abide."  She giggled girlishly, a
disturbing sound from someone of her age and bulk.  "And speaking
of laws, Cornelius..."  From somewhere about her massively pink-
clad person she withdrew a sheaf of parchment, bound along one
edge and trimmed with a wax seal and ribbon.  "I think we may
have a way to get me into that school to deal with Potter and his
lies."  She set the parchment bundle down before the Minister and
stepped back slightly, giggling again.

Fudge glanced at the title of the document.  "'The Emergency
Powers Act of 1939'?" he asked.  "How can this possibly help us,
Dolores?"

She folded her hands, lacing their fingers together, before her
thin, toothless smile.  "Look at Section 12.  Part B, paragraphs
1 through 8."

Frowning, Fudge flipped through the parchment pages until he
found the passage, and began to read.  Several minutes later, a
smile began to grow on his face, and he looked back up at her.
"Can we do this?" he asked.

Dolores' thin smile grew broad and smug.  "The Emergency Powers
Act was never rescinded after the end of the Grindlewald crisis.
The Wizengamot *suspended* it, but you can still invoke parts of
it by executive order."  If anything, her smile grew broader.
"Including Section 12-B."

Cornelius Fudge's eyes grew distant and thoughtful.  "And if I
appoint you High Inquisitor..."

She nodded gleefully.  "You can send me to Hogwarts, where I
will... take care of Potter, Dumbledore and Sangnoir -- and
any *other* traitors who might be lurking there."

END OF CHAPTER TWO

------------------------------------

This work of fiction is copyright (C) 2012, Robert M. Schroeck,
and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

The Harry Potter universe and the settings and the characters
thereof are the property of J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury and Warner
Brothers, and are used without permission.

"Douglas Q. Sangnoir," "Looney Toons", "The Loon" and any
representations thereof are copyright by and trademarks of Robert
M. Schroeck.

For a full explanation of the references and hidden tidbits in
this story, see the Drunkard's Walk VIII Concordance at:

	http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/dw8conc.shtml

Other chapters of this story can be found at:

	http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/dw8.shtml

The Drunkard's Walk discussion board is open for those who wish
to trade thoughts and comments with other readers, as well as
with the author:

	http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com

Many thanks to my prereaders on this chapter:  Christopher Angel,
Kathleen Avins, Nina Avins, Nathan Baxter, Ed Becerra, Andrew
Carr, Kevin Cody, Logan Darklighter, Shaye Horwitz, Helen Imre,
Eric James, Josh Megerman, Berg Oswell, Peggy Schroeck and Amanda
Stair-Duran.

C&C gratefully accepted.