Dumbledore stares at the parchment before him.
He rather approves of Bonbon’s approach. Rather than deciding herself, she made Lyra go through him.
And of course, to do that, she made Lyra write a fifty-page dissertation describing the spell she wants to test on his caretaker, and all of its safeties.
A dissertation that took her a few weeks to write, and him a few hours to read.
The main matrix that makes everything work, however, is not revealed. As a matter of fact, there isn’t nearly enough information in the document to even begin to guess what it looks like; Lyra had noted, however, that only about eighty-seven percent of the overall matrix is concealed- and that which is concealed is so because it would be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. Far more dangerous, even, than a stack of Unforgivables.
The reason was given, of course.
It’s a set of extremely powerful magic matrices capable of modifying the magical core, reliably. A set of matrices capable of completely overwriting who someone is- even if she’s promised to absolutely never use them to change anyone’s mind or personality, only abilities. And even then, she’ll only add, never remove.
The main reason they’re so dangerous is not because they’re deadly without the safeties. It’s that, if used improperly, they could be used to very quickly- and irreversibly- enslave an entire nation. As such, the matrices are so dangerous that writing them down at all, no matter where or how many security steps are taken, is an unwarranted risk.
She did state that she has very, very good memory, and thus does not need to write them down to be sure she’s got them all right. Besides, that’s what forty percent of the safeties are for: To shut the whole thing down before it does anything should any of it not be absolutely, perfectly accurate!
The name of the entire spell, ‘Whiskey Tango’, reads to him as a codeword.
He reads the last few paragraphs, a quick summary of the entire document, once again. Then, he finally reaches the final page.
He draws his wand, and uses a spell to move the line waiting for his signature down a little bit, before switching to his quill. Before he signs, he rewrites the statement above the signature line, crossing out the old.
I, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, authorize the testing of this spell on Argus Filch, on condition that he is provided an opportunity to review this document and signs his agreement as well.
A second signature line appears below his own, completely by itself, as soon as he finishes writing the new statement. He reads the statement above it, below the line still waiting for his signature.
I, Argus Filch, do agree to have the spell described in this document tested upon myself.
He smiles, and signs on his line.
“Ahh, paperwork.”
Hermione leaps fluidly off the train as soon as it draws to a halt. As planned, she’s going home for the holidays- and carrying her trunk along with her. It’s kinda funny, when she thinks about it; as she noticed this morning, the trunk hardly seems to weigh anything, even though it’s got exactly the same amount of stuff in it as it had when she headed to school.
… Well, technically, it’s actually got more stuff in it; the Nimbus Two Thousand wasn’t in it on the way to school, nor the sleek laptop. Nor the radio she’s not wearing right now. Nor the thirty or so books she’d ordered with her pay from being an agent. None of them could be found in the school library.
But it still feels crazy light, even though she knows she never applied a featherweight charm. She hasn’t bothered to read up on them; she hasn’t had any reason to.
She looks for her parents. Professor McGonagall had explained that they’d be able to enter the station on their own, without her, once she held their hands to take them across the barrier the first time.
She waves with her free hand. “Hey Mom! Dad! Over here!”
Her mom, Emma, charges to her and hugs her tightly. “Hermione! Oh, how I missed you!”
She lets go of her trunk, letting it float in the air next to her, to return the hug. “I missed you too, Mom.”
Her dad, Dan, joins in the hug, making it a group hug. The three hold for a few seconds, before breaking.
Dan speaks first, glancing sideways at her trunk. “So, you upgraded to the floating luggage?” he asks.
She glances at it. “Ah, no, actually. I’m making it float.” She’s not sure exactly how, but she’s fairly sure it has something to do with the strange, icy blue aura that appears around anything she uses her newfound telekinetic powers on.
… Or, more accurately, those telekinetic powers. She’s using them to float a couple of books inside her trunk, neatly hiding that aura thing from outside observation.
Emma chuckles, ruffling her hair with one hand. “And I bet you used magic on your hair as well, right?”
She grins. “Actually, no. One of my classmates used magic on me, and this-” she pats her hair- “is just a side effect.”
“A side effect?” Dan asks, alarmed. “What’s the main effect?”
“I’ll tell you once we get home. And, um, did I ever tell you just how scary it is to fly?”
Her parents share a look.
“You go high up or something?” Emma asks.
She nods, and shudders. “Yeah. Two and a half miles, dove at mach six.”
“At mach six!?” Dan almost screams.
“On a broom, yes.”
Emma stares. “You dove, at mach six, on a broom.”
She nods. “Yes.”
“Please tell me the teachers were absolutely certain you were safe.”
She shakes her head. “Uh, actually, that was right after one of the teachers attacked me. But I fought him off, and there were several hundred other students looking out for me, so I wasn’t in any kind of danger.”
Emma looks up at Dan, still staring at her after his yell. “I think I’m starting to wish I could use magic myself.”
Hermione blinks. “You know, I’m going to have to ask Lyra about that.”
“Lyra?” Dan asks. “Who’s that?”
“The classmate that designed and applied the spell that, ah, changed my hair, and who is also designing a spell to do something similar for people from her homeworld.”
“What?”
“Come on, let’s go home. A lot of that stuff is top secret, and this station isn’t exactly the best place to yap about that kind of thing.”
“... Ahh, right, going home. Um, you’ll probably want to put your weightless luggage on the trolley here- it’d probably get people’s attention.”
She raises an eyebrow. “It’s not weightless. As a matter of fact, it weighs a hundred seventy three and a half pounds.”
He looks at it. “Wait. That thing weighs as much as I do, and you’re carrying it like it weighs nothing?”
She glances down at it, before holding it with a fingertip at arms’ length. She’d switched back to manual carrying, releasing her telekinetic hold. “Um… I guess.” She scowls, and casually places it down on the trolley her parents had brought, ignoring the heavy clunking of the same. Then she shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“Well, it all started after Charms,” Hermione states, sitting on the couch. “When Applebloom thought she’d try the levitation spell one more time. For some reason, the Crusaders- Applebloom is one of ‘em- are really good at messing things up. Though, Bloom is the tamest of the three; Scoots messes up the most.
“Sorry, getting off topic. In any case, she botched the spell, and we ended up falling upwards, through the ceiling. When Lyra finally arrived to set things straight, there was only one way anyone could permanently fix the damage the spell did to me- and that was to transform me, permanently.”
“Transform?” Dan asks. “That mean you’re… Um…”
Hermione giggles. “A pegasus?”
He blinks, and stares at her. “A pegasus?”
She nods. “Yep. Turns out, Lyra- and the Crusaders- come from a whole alternate universe, where they’re all ponies. And a third of them, or so, are pegasi. That’s what she turned me into- something about expanding magic matrices. Don’t worry, I didn’t lose anything, save the bothersome hair.” She grins, brushing her hand briefly through her metallic red hair.
“But you’re not a pegasus,” Emma states, confused.
Hermione nods. “Just like they appear as humans in this world. Something about the magic of the worlds, transforms them into humans on this side. Means I got to keep my human form.” She sighs. “And, apparently, us British people have some magic facet they don’t have, that lets me transform myself at will.” She shudders. “Not… Not that I want to, or need to, but I suppose I can. Though…” She looks to the side, at the armrest of the couch. “There is… one other change, to my… human form.” She unfolds her wings slightly. “My… My wings stick around.” She folds them again, shuddering. “At least they take care of themselves.”
“So…” Emma begins.
“Magic is weird,” Dan declares.
“No kidding,” Emma agrees.
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
Harry lets out a sigh- but at least now, he has her attention. “I said, there’s something I’d like to show you tonight,” he repeats. “It’s a mirror that shows me my parents.”
Lyra raises her eyebrows. “A mirror that shows you your parents? Why do you want to show it to me?”
He shrugs. “It… It showed Ron something different. And you’re the most likely- that I can think of- to have a clue as to what it’s really doing.” Tonight is the third night after Christmas.
“Ahh. Sure, then.”
“Okay,” he mutters. “I’ll be right back.” He runs upstairs, fetches his invisibility cloak, and returns.
Lyra’s eyebrows shoot up as soon as she sees it. “Uh, where did you get that?” she asks.
He recoils slightly. “Christmas present,” he answers. “The note said it once belonged to my father.”
Lyra scowls. “Alright, where did your father get a Death’s Shroud?”
“Get what?”
She taps it gently with one finger. “That’s not an invisibility cloak. That’s a Death’s Shroud. Far more powerful than any invisibility cloak, and hellishly difficult for me to detect- flat-out impossible for anyone else. Even you, right now.” She scowls. “It’s gone stagnant, though. The sonic containment and physical anti-impediment routines are inactive. And… Yeah, the summoner’s burnt out, and the expansion matrix is jammed.”
“Uh, what?”
She smiles suddenly. “But while the identity matrix is a bit clogged, it’s still working- and it self-identifies as belonging to you.”
He stares at her.
She blinks. “Right, you don’t know what a Death’s Shroud is, do you?” She sighs. “It’s a very powerful collection of spells optimized for concealment. I’m one out of a half a dozen Equestrians powerful enough to make one, and the only Equestrian to know how. As a matter of fact, my overblown stealth spells are based on the Death’s Shroud matrices- I just have more control over them.” She taps his invisibility cloak once again. “And the only reason this one looks like an invisibility cloak is because it’s so badly damaged.”
“What.”
She tilts her head. “Would you like me to fix it real quick? These things take weeks to make, but I can repair the matrices in this one in about two minutes.”
He stares.
“Don’t worry, I won’t damage it. It is all you have left of your dad, after all.”
“Uh… Okay.”
He drops the invisibility as he runs towards the mirror, getting in front of it. Lyra had somehow made his invisibility cloak part of him, such that he can turn it on and off- nevermind stretching it to cover as many people as he wants it to- with his mind. Now, he’s turned it off and reappeared, because being invisible tickles slightly.
“Ohhh,” Lyra mutters from off to the side.
He glances over. “What?”
“The Mirror of Erised,” Lyra states. “Very powerful, technically good magical artefact- yet perhaps the most dangerous of the ‘good’ artefacts there are, while it’s at it.”
“It…” He looks at the mirror. “It shows me my parents.”
“It shows you a lie,” Lyra answers. “This mirror reflects back to you what you want to see, not what’s actually there. Besides- remember that envelope thing I was talking about in the Leaky Cauldron?”
He blinks. “Uh, yeah?”
“You can actually talk to your parents, with it. Their real souls, not just a projection of them like this mirror.” She puts a hand on each of his shoulders, staring into his eyes for a couple seconds. “Hmm… Yeah, you’ve got enough experience with it to move on. Now, here’s what I want you to do.”
Dumbledore stares at the impromptu midnight magic lesson taking place right in front of him.
He stares until it’s done, and Harry’s looking at something he can’t see, watching it dance in circles around him.
“That’s…?” Harry begins, trailing off.
“That’s your mother,” Lyra informs him. “She’s excited that you can see her. I’m afraid that’s about as far as we can get right now- you’ll have to get used to it for a while before you can move on to hearing her. Then, after that, seeing her in more detail.”
“What about my dad?”
“Your mom is far, far easier to see, because you’re looking through her magic. But he’s here as well, don’t worry.” Lyra shakes an invisible hand, drawing Harry’s attention. “Really? … Thanks, I’ll have to check it out.” She looks back at Harry. “Once you’re able to see your mom clearly, you’ll start to be able to see him like you see her now. A little past that- right about the point when you can hear him- you’ll start being able to pick out other, unrelated spirits.” She glances at the air where she’d shaken the hand. “And that’s also right about when you’ll be able to start physically interacting with your mom.”
He blinks. “Wait. They’re here?”
She nods. “Yep. Your parents will always hear anything you say, no matter where you- or they- are. They heard us talking, and got curious.” She grins. “And of course, my parents are here as well- this is my mom, Dancing Hearts.” She rests her hand on something invisible, about chest height, next to her. “And this is my dad, Hamstrings.” The other hand comes up this time, resting on something slightly higher, on her other side.