“There you are.”
Ginny led the way off the platform, out of the pipe from the Chamber of Secrets. “Silver? Why are you waiting here?”
Silver shrugged. “Why not? Unlike you three, I’m not a parselmouth, so I couldn’t get any further.” She folded her arms.
“Ahh,” Hailey nodded, following Ginny off. “Then meet our guests: Ourselves. Though sorry to say, no doppelganger for you.”
Silver laughed, then paused, frowning, while older versions of Hailey, Hermione, and Ginny all stepped out of the pipe, along with an older Luna and an unfamiliar green-haired woman. “I know ‘anything can happen in the Multiverse’, and obviously I happened- but I wonder how many other…” She trailed off. “Well, let’s be honest, I wonder how many doppelgangers I have out there in the Multiverse.”
“Probably not too many,” Hailey mused. “In most worlds like ours, you’re a death eater and a Slytherin. Mind, in most of them, I’m also male, and Royals don’t exist, and the Student Instructor Program doesn’t exist, and we’re enemies, and Hermione needs a time turner to make all her classes this year.” She shrugged. “But thanks to the Program, she doesn’t.” She grinned at Hermione. “I always wonder what happens to the poor blokes in those other worlds that pick up Arithmancy and Divination- two of the classes most of your doppelgangers need the time-turner to reach, since they’re simultaneous.”
Silver rolled her eyes. “But in any case, you’ve brought guests, haven’t you?” She glanced across them, taking in their features and expressions. “Lemme guess: Hailey, Ginny, Hermione, Luna, and… Emerald, maybe?” She pointed at the five adults in turn.
“Okay, how did you manage to guess my name but get Iris’ wrong?” the green-haired one- Emerald- complained.
“You mean I was right?” She blinked. “Huh. I saw your hair and guessed, and the others all…” She sighed. “So who’s Iris?” She scanned the other four, putting her hand to her chin as she tried to form a guess. Unfortunately, they were all too good at controlling their expressions, so she wasn’t able to figure it out on her own.
Ginny chuckled, turning to watch them, evidently intent to let them provide the answer rather than answering herself.
“She’s the one that has an iris,” Hailey answered calmly, then glanced back. “Oh wait, we all do, don’t we?” She laughed.
Silver looked at her, then back at the rest. “Alright, I’m going to guess… that you want a tour?” She grinned mischievously.
Silver pointed at her. “You’re Iris, aren’t you?”
Ginny raised an eyebrow. “Why her?”
“Because you said your sister was named Iris,” Silver answered, “and she was the first one to answer.” She giggled, with a shrug. “But unlike you two,” she put her hands on her hips and looked at Hailey and Hermione, “I’m not on the management team, so I don’t know nearly as much of the castle as you do.” She paused. “Though I’ll admit, I do know quite a bit of it.”
Hermione shrugged. “Oh come on, I don’t think anyone can compete with Hailey’s knowledge.” She glanced sideways at her. “Right?”
“Wrong, actually,” Hailey answered. “Bonbon is the one that explores every nook and cranny of this Castle at the beginning of each year.”
Ginny folded her arms. “So why didn’t you guess Emerald was her when we appeared?”
“She was the last in line,” Silver answered simply. “You never grew up as a noble, did you?”
Ginny blinked. “Uhh… No, I didn’t.”
Hailey chuckled. “So where would you like to tour first?”
“The important parts?” Ginny asked, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t know how many Hogwartses you’ve toured recently, but something tells me this one’s a bit different. How many students are there again, Hailey?”
Hailey raised an eyebrow. “Eight thousand six hundred and thirty three, of which four thousand, three hundred and thirty four are first-year students. And yes, this particular Hogwarts is pretty unique in that regard.” She glanced up at Iris. “I’m still waiting for you to ask about some of the things that’ve already been mentioned in passing.”
“Oh, you mean Sadarina? She’s regained consciousness, alright. Did that right away. She’s just napping right now.” She paused. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
The silence drew on, with everyone looking at her, for a couple seconds.
“Oh alright,” Hailey finally conceded. “Tour it is. How about…” She paused, and looked at Ginny. “The conference room, maybe? What do you think?”
Ginny raised an eyebrow. “You’re asking me? You know about all those special rooms, I don’t.”
“Well yeah, but the Astrium Room isn’t all that likely to be overly interesting, is it? Especially after what you’ve done to the Chamber of Secrets. And besides, you know them better than I do.” She sighed. “And it’s not like we’ve made any special tourist rooms, the Student Instructor Program is very much function-oriented.”
“The Astrium Room does sound boring,” Silver conceded. “But didn’t you make a freaking computer room last week?”
“Last year, actually,” Hailey answered. “This year is just when we got our hands on enough computers that we needed to designate and assemble a server room- the back of my office would no longer fit the servers we needed.” She shrugged. “In the end, touring the Castle is almost like touring a factory.” She sighed. “Really, the funnest way to ‘tour’ this castle is to wander it randomly and follow all the passages you’ve never seen before.” She paused, and looked up at the ceiling. “Hmm. The main thing we have that all the other Hogwartses don’t is the Student Instructor Program, I think.”
“Have our guests left yet?” Bonbon asked, during the next Management Team meeting a week later.
“Yes, they have,” Hailey informed her. “I’ve asked Ginny to keep the numbers down to one or two a year. They might see us as some kind of tourist attraction, but the fact is that we’ve got jobs to do, don’t we?”
Starlight laughed harshly. “Yeah, making sure I could appear friendly, stress-free, and ready to show them whatever whenever they showed up was a bit stressful. And of course, keeping everyone from realizing what they really were.” She laughed gently.
“Especially with the Care of Magical Creatures fiasco on Thursday,” Bonbon agreed. “Did you tell them about yourself?” Bonbon asked.
She shook her head. “We alluded to my abilities every once and a while, but never said anything concrete- the usual.” She paused. “What fiasco?”
“Theodore,” Bonbon informed her.
“Oh right, that,” Hailey nodded understandingly, and sighed. Just two days before, on Thursday, Theodore Nott had decided that, when the second Care of Magical Creatures lesson involved actually meeting and interacting with the hippogriffs, he’d deliberately violate the safety instructions Hagrid had impressed into them… and insulted it. Hagrid had detected the reaction and acted to contain it with admirable speed, so Theodore wasn’t mortally wounded- nor even wounded that bad. That was to say, the wound was bloody, and did look really bad and undoubtedly hurt a lot (though Theodore didn’t exhibit a very strong pain reaction), it would scab over on its own long before he would’ve passed out from blood loss.
Even so, Theodore had declared that he was dying… and after Madam Pomfrey had healed him, had claimed it still hurt ‘like hell’. Hailey had magically checked that the healing was complete, and determined that the only active pain receptors in his arm were from the tightness of the bandage rather than the wound. Bonbon, Starlight, Ginny, and even Severus Snape- in private, at least- took one glance and declared that he was lying, and it didn’t actually hurt. It was looking like Theodore’s parents either commanded a lot of political power or had friends that did, because even in just two days, letters had come in from the ministry pertaining to the incident. So they had started going through the process with the Ministry… and as near as anyone could tell, they had managed to keep their guests from hearing even a whisper about it- which, unless Ginny was wrong, was quite a feat.
“But anyways,” Hailey continued conversationally, and turned to Starlight. “How’s your research been going?”
“I’ve managed to finish the spell,” Starlight told the room. “We can now steal information from someone’s mind from up to a hundred feet away, independent of walls and floors and without risking detection or being limited to what they’re thinking about, with a simple, naturally silent spell that uses wand magic facilities despite not requiring a wand. No known counter, even including occlumency, aside from your natural wards.” She grinned slyly, glancing sideways at Hailey, who smiled innocently. “Call it legilimency, but about a million times stronger and more flexible- it’s got to be illegal.”
Hailey chuckled as well. “I bet,” she agreed.
“But we’re going to use it,” Bonbon stated, and glanced up at her. “Your target is Scabbers, Ron Weasley’s pet rat. We want to know who and what he really is- and why he’s been staying as a rat for so long.”
“I thought it might be,” Starlight sighed. “Especially after last week, when we confirmed he’s a human just pretending.” She paused. “And you do know I’m not a Gryffindor, right?”
“The entirety of Gryffindor Tower is within about eighty feet of the Portrait Hole,” Hailey informed her. “Unless folded space affects that range?”
“Uh,” she muttered. “That’s a good question. I’ll give it a shot.”
“And after this newspaper came out this morning,” Hailey agreed, sweeping it across the table, with the headline ‘Man spends thirteen years in Azkaban without trial for a crime he did not commit’.
“Oh?” Starlight said, capturing it as it reached her. “That seems…” She trailed off. “Oh, it’s talking about Black, isn’t it?”
Hailey nodded. “It is. As you can see, Rita managed to uncover muggle footage of the event for the front page- the final spell came not from Black’s wand but from Peter’s.”
“It really is convenient that spells move slow enough for us to dodge so easily,” Starlight observed. “That spell was on camera for…” She trailed off. “What is that? Two frames?”
“Roughly,” Hailey agreed. “You can still see the tail end on the third frame, and the wand tip is glowing as it concentrates the mana in the zeroth frame.”
Bonbon leaned over to look at it too. “Yeah, that’ll do it. Do you think they’ll let him off after that?”
She shook her head. “At the end of the story, she mentions that the Ministry refused to even look at the evidence when it was presented last week.”
“Someone’s getting fired,” Sunset observed calmly.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Hermione agreed. “We all know Rita has done worse.”
Hailey chuckled, glancing at her next. “Did you see the report on page six? You know, the one that speaks of rumors of an upcoming Lockhart book that wasn’t written by Lockhart?”
“Really? I didn’t see that.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Rita didn’t put very many details in that rumor, but I happen to know she’s the one writing it.”
“Ginny’s going to be happy,” Hermione observed.
“I’d rather wait until she releases it to reveal it to Ginny.” She chuckled. “Anyways, let’s get back on topic.” She turned to Bonbon. “How’s your project been going?”
“We’ve successfully transferred the personal belongings of about half the Equestrians already in this world,” she answered. “Just getting started on the first-year students. We’ve also been able to confirm we’ll be seeing Princess Celestia next year, and started making appropriate arrangements on both sides.”
“That’s going to be fun,” Hailey observed. “I wonder what kind of Student Instructor she’ll be?”
Everyone burst into laughter- even the stoic Bonbon.
“What?” Hailey shrugged. “She won’t be old and experienced enough in the ways of wand magic to serve in any higher position, especially considering they’re all filled, and I can’t see her just being a plain student.” She smiled around the room. “I would definitely not be surprised if she was the Lead Student Instructor for her year and subject, and in her seventh year at least, became Head Student Instructor and even Management Team Lead.”
“Speaking of,” Bonbon said suddenly. “We should probably adopt a policy of taking at least one or two people from each year into the Management Team, so we don’t have to keep upsetting everything by recycling the entire thing every year once we hit seventh.”
“Good idea,” Hermione muttered. “Perhaps… one per house per year, to prevent majorities? What would we do about the years that don’t have management members right now?”
“Leave them be, for upper years,” Hailey asserted. “That is, fifth and above. For fourth, we’ve only got Starlight right now- but we also have a mere five hundred and sixty seven fourth-years, so I don’t know whether or not we’ll want to select three more of them to join us. For third, there’s me and you for Gryffindor and Bonbon for Slytherin.” She paused. “Though you’re right, we’ve got no Hufflepuff representation at all, and no Ravenclaw or Slytherin beyond Starlight and Bonbon, and we’re missing a few HSIs.”
“What about me?” Sunset asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You’re not a student,” she answered. “If anything, you’re staff representation.” She sighed. “So if we get Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw third-years, then all four houses in the lower two years…” She paused. “I imagine we can pick from our Lead Student Instructors for that, and introduce one to the Team at a time, starting in the higher years. Maybe… Two or three weeks apart, no particular order as far as houses are concerned? And of course, no rush in recruiting new first-years each year, and if we ever don’t find a suitable candidate for any given year or house, no big deal, maybe they’ll appear later.” She leaned back. “And I think we can restrict our selection of HSIs to the highest two years participating in the Program, so third and fourth this year, and fill out those positions in the process.”
“Hi Ginny.”
Ginny looked up. “Hello, Hermione. What brings you to the Chamber of Secrets?”
“Just thought I’d visit. What are you up to?”
Ginny shrugged. “Thanks to the ridiculous amount of power these Void Weave Drives offer, I’ve already filled half of these tanks,” she answered. “That’s quite a lot of Astrium in only three weeks. So of course, I’m setting up the drilling program to be a little more aggressive, so as to actually use all the power they’re offering in Astrium production, and also to make additional tanks as it goes.” She shrugged. “I’m also taking Iris’ suggestion and reconstructing the Chamber of Secrets into an Astrium Chamber, with Forged Astrium walls and everything. It’s going to make manipulating things a lot easier, though I’m taking care to preserve the original aesthetic.” She chuckled. “That’s taking some time, since I’m replacing the existing walls rather than building over them and deliberately leaving both parseltongue barriers intact.”
“Ahh,” Hermione muttered, jumping off the Void Weave Drives and looking up at the walls and ceiling. “Anyways, I’ve been thinking- and I have to ask, why do I seem so…” She paused. “Mature, almost?”
“You were already very mature for your age,” Ginny answered. “The difference is simply that the Astrium format you’re in right now is designed to allow your mental structure to mature with you… whereas in the human body, the biological brain structure defines the mental structure.” She shrugged. “That’s undoubtedly why I, the reincarnation of a fifty-year-old Dark Lord, have made so many childish mistakes.” She sighed. “And it’s one of the reasons we couldn’t just make your new body into an exact genetic match of the old with Astrium upgrades applied. Your mental structure evolved very quickly to match your actual maturity… and I can’t exactly turn you into a twenty-year-old, can I?” She chuckled. “So we’ve turned your brain into the organic equivalent of the Astrium control matrix you’re controlling that body through.
“It means your brain will look very different, since rather than having each little part dedicated to a certain task, the whole thing is set for generalized processing, aside from the bits for memory. But that shouldn’t have any effect, aside from protecting you from the same issues I face from being too mature for my body.”
“And making any MRI or CT scan operator think I have smooth brain syndrome,” Hermione observed.
There was silence for a couple seconds while Ginny looked up the abbreviations and terms.
“Uh, yeah, right about,” she finally agreed, and sighed. “I kinda envy Myrtle. She won’t have to deal with so much over-maturity as either of us, since becoming a ghost also freezes the mental maturation process.”
“... Say what?” Hermione asked.
“Hmm? Oh, right. She’s reincarnating too- that’s why she hasn’t been in that bathroom all year. And when you reincarnate, you aren’t actually reliant on your new body’s brain for the first ten years or so. Instead, I was still part-phantom through that time, and she’ll still be part-ghost.” She shrugged. “But you can’t reincarnate without dying properly, so I’m never going to reincarnate again, and you’re never going to be able to reincarnate, either. And don’t worry, being of- or friends with someone that is of- the Sequence is much, much better anyways.” She grinned. “For one thing, you never have to worry about being forced into a brain that’s less mature than you are.”
“I take it it wasn’t possible to reincarnate Myrtle with a biofab?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I can’t install Astrium modules in ghosts- but I’ve already installed some in her new body, even though she hasn’t even been born yet. Fortunately, during the same window reincarnation requires, installation of even something complex is incredibly easy.” She grinned. “Not as easy as installing it in something Astrium-based, like you, but still.”