AN/1: okay I have a new schedule where I try to post every two weeks on a Wednesday and even though that hasn't been working out I'll try to stick to it.

AN/2: After this chapter goes up I'll have enough potential plot-hooks to last until the universe reaches thermodynamic equilibrium woohoo

#######

CHAPTER FIVE

#######

The Daily Mail

GALACTIC WHODUNNIT: SCIENTISTS FIND INEXPLICABLE VOID IN UNIVERSE

March 1, 1983

After analysing the latest data from the Rockefeller Wide-Array Moon Telescope, scientists at the Royal Observatory have reported the discovery of a "perfectly spherical void" in the middle of the Virgo Cluster, where matter is not only more sparse, as has been observed in other voids, but "totally absent". The newly-discovered void has been named the Tibbles Void, after the late Walter Rockefeller's cat, who recently came into the possession of his enormous fortune.

Photographs of the edges of the Tibbles Void show galaxies "cleanly bisected", still more torn apart due to an unknown violent cosmic event [...]

#######

Hermione's parents had always enjoyed a good protest – as long as they were small, quiet, and didn't accomplish anything they could indirectly hold responsibility for. This was one of the many areas where Hermione differed from her parents. She'd gone to protests out of an indirect obligation to whales, trees, and elderly people, none of whom presumably could advance their interests without her help.

On the seventh of May 1991, it was drizzling and the grey clouds were milling about in the sky, as if waiting for the weather-police to come along and arrest them for loitering. People were milling about on the ground, setting up stands and hurriedly finishing their placards, waiting for the demonstration to reach critical mass. A homeless man sat at the edge of the water fountain with a newspaper unfolded in his hands. 'FTSE FALLS ANOTHER 2%' – the title had been the same yesterday, and the day before that. Policemen stood at the fringes of the Square, looking uncertain.

"Hermione?" came Anita's voice from behind her.

Everything went into a half-second loop. The pigeons flapped their wings, and flapped them and flapped and flapped. The newspaper turned over in the homeless man's hands, and then jumped back to the start, again and again and again. Everyone around her was walking, and then they were back to were they were, and then they started walking. There was a low buzz that she hadn't noticed before, like ten trillion electronic hornets all descending on her. There was suddenly a second, reddish moon in the sky.

She turned around, but somehow she stayed in the same place because she could see into the back of her head and her squishy, reddish brain like cross-sections had been cut into it with a butcher's knife and her hair flailing about in a loop and she was a big trail like on the terminal screen when everything froze up and you dragged the mouse across and it made a big mouse trail behind it. She walked forward until she could see Anita's face, but Anita was melting like the time she'd put a little green soldier in a microwave and watched it collapse into a puddle and begin to burn vicious, noxious smoke. Her pointy nose was drooping and her blue eyes were glassy and dull and started leaking out of her face. Her mouth stayed in the same place, but her lips were slugs and her teeth had gone shiny and reflective, a chrome finish.

"I'm dead," Hermione said, and suddenly there were hornets everywhere, stinging and biting her flesh, tearing it off in chunks and carrying it away. They were laughing.

"No," said Anita's slug-lips. "I'm dead. I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead

#######

ELKNIWT'S ASTRONOMY SUPPLIES, 1511 NOGAID ALLEY, LONDON

Cymeglen's trunk had been filled with other trunks. This was surprising because according to just about everyone else, the room was filled with old furniture. Ozland asked many times just to be sure, and then had to defend himself from allegations of trunk-madness, whatever that was.

After having afternoon tea, they puddlejumped to the faded exterior of Elkniwt's Astronomy Supplies on 1511 Nogaid Alley. A tattered poster was stuck to the door, reading 'CLEARANCE SALE', then below in smaller letters 'IT'S ALL FREE' and then in even smaller letters 'you bastards'.

They walked in, and found that the owner had apparently gone to a great effort to make the store look thematically appropriate by removing all the lighting fixtures and leaving the entire store in total darkness.

"So," said Ozland, "why's it called Nogaid Alley?"

"Alright," said George, "allow me to set the scene. February 5, 1981. An enterprising Muggleborn salesman by the name of –"

"It's another universe someone busted a hole into," interrupted Ron, tersely.

"– William Dowpill wants to set up a crumpet-stand, but he doesn't have a license."

"Ooh," Fred oohed. "And Ron, every interruption is another candied spider."

Ron shrank back.

"So what does he do? He casts a land-expansion ritual near the edge of Diagon's dimensional pocket, opens up our dimension to blankspace, and sets up his crumpet-stand in it, operating on the, may I say, ironclad logic that the Ministry has no jurisdiction over blankspace, since it technically doesn't exist."

"And what happened next?" asked Fred, hushed.

George gestured expansively with his arms. "The crumpet-stand . . . acted as a seed – hold on, no, a key – a key that opened a door into another universe in the apartment below. But, now here's the thing – the version of William Dowpill in that sideways-universe also casted a land-expansion ritual, and so did the other one the next universe over. Infinitely."

"The strangest thing!" exclaimed Fred.

"And eight universes down . . . there was a universe where pointy hats were considered a form of sexual deviancy, so the Ministry of Magic for that universe sealed itself off, ending the chain. Fifty thousand witches and wizards, all stranded sideways through hyperspace, their own dimensional pockets sealed off from the outside world and glued together with ours."

"A tragedy!"

"So we fined them for four hundred years of unpaid taxes, copyright violations, and construction without permits, and backed it up with the Cup of Magic. Oh, and we put a Jinx on all of them to give them funny accents."

"And that," ended Fred, "is how Nogaid Alley got its name."

Ginny clapped sarcastically.

"Um, I imagine they wouldn't be too happy about any of that. Being debt peons."

"Doesn't matter," said Ron, "they're not real, anyway."

Everyone except for Ozland nodded.

"Um," said Ozland, making a resolution to start sentences with 'um' less, "I might be missing something obvious here, but why is that exactly?"

Ron looked at him as if he'd not only grown another head, but as if that additional head had grown tiny bat wings and begun lifting him up into the air. "Er, they don't have souls, their universes don't have prophecies – and that means they don't have free will –"

"How do you know they don't have souls?"

"'Cos you can't sacrifice their souls in rituals. You can sacrifice their life-force, but there's nothing else to sacrifice. First thing the Ministry tried when we opened up a Gateway."

"Okay, now what about the prophecies and the free will thing?"

Ron sniffed. "Well it's obvious, innit? They don't have any prophecies so they don't have free will."

"A prophecy as in . . . a prediction about the future that has to come true?"

Ron nodded, taking on a more serious tone, as if he was giving an answer for an exam. "Prophecies are the motor-force of history – without prophecies, the only reason why things would happen is because other things happened before them, with all of those things happening as material interactions. But since those material interactions converge on a particular outcome in accordance with prophecy, that implies that free will exists to guide those material interactions towards that outcome. Therefore, sideways-people are biological automatons."

"That's twisty and makes no sense," Ozland wanted to say, and then realised that he'd actually said it.

A shrug from Ron. "Got me a EE in the Land Expansion course, so it can't be all wrong."

"That's the kind of thing I'd make up if I wanted to justify the . . . sideways-peoples' position as eternal debt-peons."

"That's just how it is," shrugged Fred, seeming unconcerned, "might as well not feel bad about it all. Be happy, feel good, and be feel happy-good, that's my life philosophy."

"Where's Mum?" said Ron, knotting his eyebrows.

"She found a cube-shaped globe of the Earth and she's flipping it for a Galleon in the universe with the weird numbers," said Ginny. "At least that's what she said. I'm pretty sure she was lying, since we don't need to flip things anymore."

"On that note," said Fred, "or at least one of those notes – whatever one is closest to what I'm about to talk about – the owner probably put a bunch of cool Curses on his merch, and we're going to need to investigate for investigatory purposes. Ginny, stay at the front – otherwise you'll get lost or have your fingers bitten off by Cursed doorknobs, or both, hopefully."

"I wouldn't – even if I wanted to, which I don't. Gwynne's talking to me over the windspraek."

"Look, Ginny – you don't have to invent imaginary friends to impress us."

"You . . . you two literally met her last year at the Slug Party, what the fuck."

"Yes, Ginny," Fred said, affecting a sympathetic tone, "we definitely met her," he elbowed George, "didn't we, George?"

"Yeah," said George, "shook hands and everything. She was definitely, you know, physically there."

Ginny stormed off.

"Alright, back here in fifteen? Catch you later, Ozzy, Ronniekins."

There was a stretch of silence, during which they walked by a long row of telescopes, all jammed into a brick wall.

"What do you ween that's for?"

"Let's take a look-see," Ozland said, tripping on an uneven bit of carpet.

Ron grabbed his shoulder. "Yeah, mate – not a good idea. You don't just take a look-see through a telescope in the back of a forgotten store abandoned by the dimensional-twin of a mad store-owner . . . oh Merlin, I think I've seen this in a play or something." He held up a finger. "It's on the tip of my tongue."

Ozland waited patiently for over a minute.

"Jungles of Aphrodite," Ron triumphantly burst out. "They look through the telescope, and before they know it, they get sucked in and get put on Venus."

"What then?"

"I fell asleep after that, but the twins said everyone died. I think the main lesson is, don't go looking into random telescopes until you know for sure that they're not Cursed or haven't had eldritch magic done on them." Ron did a twirly-loopy thing with his wand (Ozland wondered whether wand-motions had any pattern or structure) before pointing at the telescopes and ending it with "Revelare maledicta."

Nothing happened.

Ron scratched his head. "You know what would really be useful? If they started glowing bright green. Then I'd be able to tell the difference between 'not cursed' and 'I messed up the spell'. Good work, there, Infectus, you bloody brilliant spellcrafter," he sighed. "Alright, now for the, er, eldritch magic detection spell. Verdobrillo."

The telescopes began glowing bright green.

Ozland stared. "Eldritch or not-eldritch?"

" . . . I don't really know the spell for detecting eldritch magic, that was just the spell for making things glow bright green," Ron admitted. "I'm sorry, I needed a win."

"Silencio," came a soft voice from behind them. A yellowish ray of light struck Ron, who had begun to dodge. Unfortunately, the direction he dodged in was upwards. Ozland swung around as Ron began vigorously mouthing words for some reason, only to see a blonde girl about a half-head shorter than him wrapped in a knitted quilt.

"Are you from the outside?" she asked, very normally.

"From the what?" Ozland reached for his wand, but realised he didn't know anything except for the spell the twins had cast back in the Supermarket except that it was useless for defending himself and he'd forgotten it, and eventually he awkwardly slung his hand by his side.

The girl turned her head, seeming to peer into the gloom.

The quiet stretched on until it was almost unbearable, and then –

"I have wandered here for so many years. I was born in the darkness, my mother was born in the darkness, and her mother before her. But that is long ago," she waved her hand contemptuously, "and I have taken many forms since then. Where do you hail from, stranger?"

Ron began screwing up his eyebrows and pointing his wand at himself.

"Um," Ozland began, instantly hating himself, "um –"

"Ah, a traveller from the city of Um. I had thought it to be long gone, even in my time, but evidently Um has risen once more, as it was foretold by Prachit the Terrible –"

Ron doubled over, gasping. "This is Luna Lovegood and she's in the year below us and she does this all the time and you can't just pretend to be insane whenever Flitwick tries to give you detention the only place where that works is Muggle television –"

"Um," said Ozland, astutely.

"– and why did you silence me?"

"Because," Luna remarked, "I knew you'd ruin my sketch."

"– and how didn't we see you?"

"Something something Nargles."

"What?"

"Ignore him," she said to Ozland, gesturing at Ron, who was rubbing his head. "I'm Professor Lovegood, senior Transfiguration lecturer at Hogwarts and undercover Auror at the DMLE's Bad Things Division. I adopted this youthful form earlier this year to get on the inside of a daffodil-smuggling ring – daffodils are legal, but we have a strict no-ring policy at Hogwarts."

"I'm Ozland Cunningham, Mars-Minister of General Affairs of the New Zealand branch of the Celestian Unorthodox Church," said Ozland automatically. God I'm so confused.

Ron spluttered. "Luna is fourteen or something and I've seen her do this bit three times before. Also, Ozland, what?"

The girl in the quilt tapped her cheek. "I think I might've seen your name somewhere in the Muggle newspapers my dad reads."

...

"Ah, that's it."

"What's it?"

"Exposition. And this late in the story too, how lazy."

"Er," said Ron, "you know we can't see exposition, right, Luna?"

"This is getting too meta for me," muttered Ozland.

"Oh, no," said Luna, breaking into an unusually deep belly-laugh, "this is just my 'pretending we're all in a book' gimmick."

Ozland clasped the side of his head, suddenly overcome by a nauseating wave of unreality. "Look, Ron – let's just pull the telescopes out of the wall and get going. Luna, whatever you were doing . . . what were you doing?"

"Mhm," hummed Luna, completely ignoring the question, "well, you'd want the second and third ones then."

"Come on," said Ron, also clasping the side of his head and looking upwards at the ceiling for no discernible reason, "tell us what all of them do. There's a good gag here, I can sense it."

"I don't think the universe works like that, Ron," said Ozland.

"Well," replied Luna, "the first one shows you the back of your head."

Ron nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Does Luna always make things this weird?"

"The second one shows you the world from five minutes ago."

Ron nodded with more vigour. "Yup, keep going."

"How does she know any of this, anyway? I think she's just making it up."

"The third one shows you what the world would look like if telescopes hadn't been invented, but it's pretty pointless because it's pointing at Sagittarius right now."

"Oh."

"Okay, great! Now that we've wrapped everything up –"

"Oh, and the fourth one sucks you up and puts you on Venus."

#######

It was five o'clock, and Ozland had been awake for twenty-five hours. The twins had bought him a lemonade-flavoured Wakefulness Potion in a crystal vial, which he'd gulped down with wild abandon. The feeling was identical to agrypnomorphine – a dirty, giddy, paranoid buzz. The thought occurred to him: what if agrypnomorphine was Wakefulness Potion? Wakefulness Potion, perhaps adulterated with some other stimulant, manufactured in magical Britain, sold onto the Triad, and concentrated into the powder that businessmen sprinkled onto their coffees and rubbed into their gums?

The sights and sounds around him, dulled by sleep deprivation, became jabbing pains.

He became painfully aware of his own powerlessness.

Ginny was a year younger than him, but knew three years worth of spells.

Ron seemed friendly, if not slightly insecure, but when they'd gone for lunch at Florean Fortescue's, he'd played Ozland for ten one-minute quick games of chess, always starting with the Bongcloud Attack, and had swiftly won each game.

The twins had a Secret Box, a flying carpet, Time Turners and God knew what else, were coming into their Seventh Year, and had invented at least five original Charms.

Mrs Weasley seemed familiar with ritual theory, had three decades of post-Hogwarts experience in magic, and had fought in a war.

Every person passing by, perhaps with the exception of small children, could easily kill him – and the only thing keeping him safe was that, at the moment, nobody had a sufficiently good reason to.

"Come on now, it doesn't take that long."

"Mum, he's on Wakefulness Potion," said Ginny. "And besides, he doesn't have a Ministry-issued floppy disk yet, so he can't do it anyway."

They were on Side-Alley 5K. Or were they? Ozland saw the sign a few minutes ago, but he could easily have been False Memory-Charmed. All he knew was that people who looked like Mrs Weasley, Ginny, and him were standing outside a series of what he assumed were golden fridges, or telephone booths. Was he even him?

"And?"

"And he's obviously in a paranoia loop. Just look at his eyes."

"Oh dear, he is, isn't he? Disconfundo."

Ozland suddenly lost track of what he was thinking about.

"Ozland?" Mrs Weasley said softly.

"Yes?" There was something he was thinking about but he wasn't thinking about it anymore. What had he been thinking about? Think, think, think. He could see the shape of the thought, like a wrapped gift, but he couldn't untie the bow.

"This is a Rejuvenation Booth."

"What?"

"This is a Rejuvenation Booth," Mrs Weasley patiently repeated. "You're going to have to learn how to use one of these, so pay attention. Wand out."

Ozland dug through his pockets for his wand, while Mrs Weasley looked on, disapprovingly. He was struck by the oddity of the scene. The sky now had a purplish tint and the second red moon had the malevolent radiance of a stop-light. The clouds were even odder than when he'd first jumped out of a puddle and into Diagon Alley: spinning triangles, like hookah-rings blown by a god trying to show off. The buildings around them were much posher, with jutting decks and silver rails, but were still intimidating in the same way that forests with tall trees were.

"We'll have to get you a proper holster, too. Now, listen closely. It's very simple. First, do a rotated sigma-swish – by that I mean trace the letter 'M' – then draw a small circle."

He traced out the motions. The sequence felt oddly natural.

"Now, you don't have to do this part." She swished her wand about. "Epísimo aítima pros to Ypourgeío. I, Molly Weasley, request the use of twenty kilothaums for the purpose of a standard rejuvenation ritual to be conducted within Booth Number 1092."

"REQUEST APPROVED," boomed a voice from no particular direction. "THREE KNUTS HAS BEEN CHARGED TO YOUR ACCOUNT."

Mrs Weasley grasped at the air and pulled, until a fragment of a line, thinner than a hair, but thicker than spider silk, appeared between her thumb and index finger. She went around to the side of the booth, where a copper rod jutted out from its scratched surface, and wound the thread around the rod.

The front of the booth opened with a click, revealing a slot, into which Mrs Weasley placed a 3½ inch floppy-disk labelled 'MW, subt-aged, 20s' in neat cursive. Inside the booth, on the ground, was the chalk outline of a circle. She then brought out a needle and pricked her thumb, allowing a drop of blood to spill into the centre, walking into the circle. The door closed.

There was a murmuring of words, a kettle-like squeal, and a loud bang.

Ginny leant against a pole, staring disinterestedly up at the sky.

Mrs Weasley stepped out, looking subtly older. Her eyes were more crinkled, her posture sharper, and there were streaks of gray in her imperceptibly-thinner hair. In his heightened state of awareness, Ozland noticed she was wearing a plain silver wristband, and remembered that Professor McGonagall had been wearing one too – Dumbledore's had been gold. (The thought occurred to him that in a society where everyone looked to be in their mid-20s, status symbols would become necessary.)

"Class of 1966 Gryffindor gala," she said, as if that explained anything. "Have you thought about what House you'll be in?"

"House? Um, not really."

She opened her mouth, as if she was about to say something, when a raven Patronus appeared, perching on top of the booth.

A high-pitched voice rang out from its beak: "Molly, where are you? Albus wants the boy at Hogwarts!"

"Side-Alley 5K, near the booths," Mrs Weasley enunciated crisply. "Professor Flitwick, he teaches Charms and Ritual Theory," she added, after the raven had flown off. "In any case, you should consider Gryffindor. It's the House we were Sorted into, along with Minerva, Chief Warlock Dumbledore – and most of the Light side of the War."

Ozland's head spun with all of the implied capital letters. "Why not the others?"

Ginny, who had been quiet up until that point, piped up. "Slytherins are slimy aristocrats, Hufflepuffs are losers, and Ravenclaws are goody-goody book–"

Mrs Weasley shot Ginny a disapproving look.

A tiny man in green robes whirled into existence on the cobblestones a few feet from them. He slipped on a puddle, almost falling flat on his back before he somehow managed to right himself. "Ah," he squeaked brightly, "Molly, Ginny . . . and you must be Ozland Dwimmersmith, yes?"

"Yes," said Ozland, stiffly, unsure as to what else he should say.

"Then I'm afraid you will have to bid the lovely Weasleys adieu and bring your no-doubt exciting shopping excursion to a close – the Headmaster requests your presence in his office to discuss your lodging situation," the tiny man frowned, "and a few other things, I would imagine."

Ozland shook Mrs Weasley's hand, and after some heavy-handed prompting, Ginny shook his hand too, seeming delighted to almost squeeze it into a pulp. "Thank you," Ozland said with as much genuineness as he could muster, "and I'm not saying that as a nicety either. Today has been – well, I checked to make sure I wasn't dreaming nine times today, that should give you an idea. And I'm still confused about a lot of things, including how your economy works and what the whole dimensional pocket business is about – but all of you are such wonderful people and I don't think there could've been a better family in wizarding Britain to reacquaint me with this world, and I hope one day I can discharge my enormous debt to all of you. Please give Ron and the twins my regards – and as soon as I find out how thermoses work, I'll send a letter to Mr Weasley. Also keep the chocolate safe."

Professor Flitwick took out a checkered handkerchief twice the width of his face, dabbed his eyes, and sneezed into it, very emotionally. "Truly, truly heartwarming. And dear me, would you look at the time – we have about fifteen minutes until you're expected to meet with the Headmaster – we'd better Apparate." He held out his arm. "Irish jig position, please, Ozland."

After a few more goodbyes, they hooked their arms together.

"Three, two, one."

The streets around him vanished and everything went dark and cramped. Ozland remembered Professor McGonagall had said that Apparition felt like being forced through a curly drinking-straw – it turned out to be a very accurate description.

They landed inside a treehouse, spinning on the spot.

He looked around. "How many students does Hogwarts have?"

Flitwick opened the door to the treehouse, revealing a long cable to which a little wooden carriage was attached, a cable that descended from the treetops to a castle obscured by a light mist in the distance. "Hogwarts proper is warded against Apparition – this is an outpost." He opened a second, creaky door which lead into the carriage and hopped inside, seating himself on a patterned stool. "Oh, don't be alarmed – it's Charmed for balance and flawless function," he said, at Ozland's reluctance.

Ozland clambered his way in, tripping on an uneven bit of carpet before finding himself a stool to sit on.

The little man flicked his wand, and the carriage lurched. Looking out the window, he could have sworn the trees were bending out of the way to accommodate its breakneck speed.

"So," said Flitwick conversationally, "had a hectic day, did you?"

"To say the least."

They sat in silence, the professor tapping his knee with frenetic regularity. Despite his jovial disposition, Ozland had the sense that something was making him uneasy.

Flitwick cleared his throat. "Have you thought about what House you'll be in?"

Ozland wondered, not for the first time, whether he had any choice in the matter. From what he'd heard, whatever sorting mechanism Hogwarts was using, it was based around literary archetypes and high-school sitcom clichés, rather than anything sensible. Would it be a hundred-question personality test? Some sort of trial by fire? A mind-reading device? Clearly personal preferences had some effect on the sorting process, otherwise nobody would be attempting to sway him to their way of thinking.

"Er, no."

The Charms Professor seemed to take this as his cue. "Now, I know the Weasleys have probably already sold you on Gryffindor, but," he held up a finger, "Ravenclaw is really where you'll want to be if your temperament is more quiet and studious – we're one of the best-performing Houses academically, and we have very active study and support groups managed by our helpful Prefects – which could be a boon in your case, since you'll be catching up with four years of coursework – and I have to say, our common room has a simply breathtaking vista in addition to our own library –"

"Anything wrong with the other Houses?" Ozland asked.

"– ah, there's nothing wrong with the other Houses per se," Flitwick said, slightly thrown by the sudden interjection – and then, as if considering the question more deeply, he went on. "In Gryffindor, it's almost inevitable you'll become caught up in some wild shenanigans, docked points for something you weren't responsible for – if you're with the wrong people at the wrong time – and Gryffindors . . . tend to be, ah, headstrong, very prone to quick judgement rather than rigorous analysis – make of that what you will," he paused, grimacing, "Slytherin . . . I would recommend strongly against Slytherin." He seemed pained. "If you are Sorted into Slytherin, I would urge you to file an appeal with the Headmaster."

"Why?"

"You haven't been to wizarding Britain in a number of years, is that right?"

"The last time I was here, I was a toddler."

"Mhm," hummed Professor Flitwick, "there is a cultural jump from Muggle to wizarding society, I'm told. But the jump from Muggle to Slytherin society is much greater. Hierarchies, alliances, codes, conspiracies, historical feuds between families, deference, blood purity," he looked particularly disgusted at the word, "Slytherin children are accustomed to all of those things. A wrong word at the House table could have you shunned for the remainder of your years at Hogwarts – very unpleasant, unfortunately I have been witness to the phenomenon a number of times. And, naturally, the Slytherins will assume that you will be a Muggleborn, from whom they demand submissiveness. A momentary lack of civility will be treated as the upending of a natural order, and Slytherins do not take to threats, however slight, to their aristocratic privilege very kindly."

That sounds fairly interesting, actually. "And Hufflepuff?"

Professor Flitwick lightly coughed. "Slytherin is known for its cunning, Ravenclaw for its wit, Gryffindor for its bravery. Hufflepuff is known as the House to which students who possess none of those virtues are Sorted. Although, in all respects, Hufflepuff is a very pleasant, very lovely House to be in, I'm told," he added, unconvincingly.

What is up with these people and constantly shitting on Hufflepuff? "Ravenclaw does sound very appealing."

"Good to hear," Flitwick replied, although he still seemed tense. There was a long lull, in which nothing but the swishing of the trees around them could be heard. The castle loomed larger, and Ozland was able to see parapets and gargoyles and towers jutting out of a medieval edifice. Coming out of a particular tower in the castle was a fork of what looked like frozen lightning. It looked almost like a wound in the air.

"What's that?" Ozland said, pointing.

"What?"

Ozland pointed more accurately.

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that."

"That's nothing to worry about."

"I'm sure, but I'd like to know what it is, if it isn't any trouble."

"It's, ah, an aurora borealis. We get them in Hogwarts, sometimes."

"During the daytime?"

"Yes."

"Just near one of the castle's towers?"

"Yes. They can be highly localised."

"Huh."

"It's none of my business, really," Flitwick said, after some time had passed, his eyes flitting back and forth from one window to another, "but would it be alright if I asked you what area your accidental magic ended up specialising in? It's purely out of personal interest."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Penelope Clearwater – she graduated last year – can Silence the area around her. Althea Golledge can tell how long any given thing would take or last – she's in the Department of Mysteries, now, works in project management – although, chronomantic abilities are rather rare. It's fairly common with Muggleborns, or in your case, wizardborns who grew up in Muggle society – it usually develops in children after the age of eleven unless they go to Hogwarts, which acts as a magical outlet I suppose you could say."

"I didn't specialise in anything. Unless there's a common theme to levitating pencils and turning water into orange juice –"

The carriage jolted, passing through an open window in the castle, and screeching as it flew through rows of corridors lined with knights and paintings.

"– is this safe?"

"I enchanted it myself," Flitwick said, sounding slightly hurt.

Ozland looked through the front window.

"There isn't any cable in front of us."

"It makes new cable once it runs out," the professor replied, as if that was anywhere near a reassuring explanation.

The carriage stopped outside an enormous, ugly stone griffin, guarding a spiral staircase.

"The staircase stopped working since the man from the Office of Impossibility said it was impossible, so just walk right on up," Flitwick said, tipping his pointed hat. "Cheerio, Ozland – good talking to you."

Ozland waved half-heartedly and paused in front of the gargoyle. After pacing back and forth in front of it, he realised he might as well try, since Flitwick's carriage had zoomed down the halls and nobody else was around. "I'm here to see Dumbledore," he said finally.

The griffin shuffled aside. Ozland began walking up the staircase, stopping at a towering door that visibly glistened and crackled with magic.

A painting of a pompous-looking, tiny-nosed man was fixed to the front. "Here to see Dumbledore?" it asked.

Ozland froze. "Are you . . . conscious?"

"No, I just have an infinite book tucked under my arm that tells me what to say given arbitrary input sentences from random strangers who come up to Dumbledore's door. Of course I'm conscious, you twat. Now, are you here to see Dumbledore or not?"

"I'm at Dumbledore's door, what do you think?"

"What do I think?" scoffed the painting, clearly affronted. "What do I think? Clearly nothing, since my pitiful, illegitimate consciousness is smeared across a three-hundred-year-old canvas and mixed with egg whites. Go in, you bigoted clod – it's open."

Ozland's first reaction was to threaten to pour acid onto it while it was sleeping (that is, if paintings even slept), but it occurred to him that it would be unwise to say this aloud, no less in front of the door to the Headmaster of the school he would be attending –

Will I, though?

To do anything else seemed to run against the logic of the universe. He'd gotten a strange letter from a secret society of wizards inviting him to attend a secret magic school, found out who his real parents were, gone shopping for his supplies . . . saying 'no' after all of that and returning back to his life just didn't seem like an option.

Of course it's an option. Why wouldn't it be an option? Am I going to be ranking available options by narrative convenience now?

It was an option, of course – a narratively-inconvenient option, perhaps, but an option nonetheless. But would he be allowed to choose it? Professor McGonagall had mentioned Memory Charms, the twins had talked at length about magical contracts, Ron had discussed the Imperius – the wizarding world seemed to explode with ways that a much more powerful, senior wizard could mess with his mind in unforeseen ways. And there had been something about a prophecy . . .

George had warned him against going up against Time except on Sundays, and although he'd probably been joking, it was still good advice.

The truth was, he felt a very deep something to the Celestian Unorthodox Church, and that something was like a fish-hook buried deep in his gut, except in a less painful way.

Although, that considered, in the end, hitting the big red nuclear button and ditching the Church for Hogwarts would probably be better for his long-term mental health.

"Internal monologue, eh?" said the painting, still looking rather malicious.

"Yeah."

"Naturally, I don't experience internal monologue, or for that matter, any qualia because I'm just a good-for-nothing p-zombie, post-Classical slab of shi–"

Ozland knocked politely and pushed open the door, which gave way with surprising ease.

Dumbledore's office was what you'd expect of eight centuries of continuous habitation by eccentric old men – and lately, one very eccentric, very old man. The wallpaper was a faded indigo, but it had been unevenly wallpapered over with three other layers of wallpaper and then suffocated by hundreds of paintings of headmasters, most snoring, some talking silently to one another, a few making rude gestures at him. Tables from various eras had made the room their permanent residence, and housed an assortment of things – pointless, intricate little machines that made pointless, intricate sounds. Vellum-bound books cascaded from questionably-stable shelves. There were three doors in the room, one wedged beneath two paintings of pipes, one on the the roof, and one that Ozland's brain insisted was definitely in the room, but, as far as he could see, wasn't anywhere.

At the centre of the chaos was Dumbledore, who was smiling wanly at him with his half-moon glasses, ridiculous beard, and light purple robes – sitting at his desk, on top of which there was an open book with a gun-shaped hole cut into its pages, except the hole was pitch-black, and there was a little stepladder descending into it.

"Ah, Ozland! Don't mind Rudolfus – he's weary of his dreadfully-prolonged, meaningless existence and only attempting to incite students to commit acts of violence against his person in an attempt to break up the tedium. But let it be known, he's very fun once the Butterbeer begins to flow."

"Wouldn't it be more ethical to, you know, end his existence, then?"

"Unfortunately assisted painting-suicide is still outlawed by Ministry decree unless consent is given – otherwise it would be considered murder," said Dumbledore, gravely.

"So if he consents to – "

"The Ministry considers paintings to be non-conscious simulacra, incapable of giving meaningful consent." He threw up his hands. "The world is a mad, mad place, Ozland. But I digress – it is too common an affliction among us youthful old men to stride off the beaten conversational path and into the forests of the night – would you care to take a seat? Ah, the red chesterfield, an excellent choice."

Ozland couldn't help but stare at the book-hole. "Professor Flitwick said something about lodging arrangements?"

"Indeed. Professor Mogpipe who teaches Eighth Year Magical Maintenance, was walking down the third floor corridor not so long ago, considering the issue of your far-awayness from Britain having been prompted by myself, and by fortunate happenstance, found a room which should accommodate you for the five days up to the beginning of the school term." The indecision must have been plain on his face, for Dumbledore frowned. "You have obligations at home. How utterly inconsiderate of me to make such an imposition."

Ozland rubbed his eyes. "No, it's fine. When I first, you know, grasped the whole scope of what was going on, how isolated everything was – I mean, it's literally the other side of the world, I couldn't be further away from New Zealand – I thought I could just, well, I'm not sure, maybe I could rent an apartment or bunk up in one of the Weasleys' spare rooms. I could learn magic at Hogwarts and just have nothing I needed to do." He yawned. The Wakefulness-whatever-it-was was wearing off, apparently. "That sounded really great at first, but then, well, what would I be doing it for? What would I be going to Hogwarts for?"

"To make new friends and devote yourself to the study of the arcane arts?"

He paused. "Well, actually those would be some good reasons to go to Hogwarts. But people need me back home and I can't just disappear one night and never see them again. Besides the fact that it would start a civil war and probably end in a nuclear exchange covering Australasia. But it would still be hard," he waved his hands about helplessly, "knowing all of this exists."

Dumbledore leaned forward. "Perhaps I can make the decision easier for you."

"Go on."

"If you do not attend Hogwarts, you will explode."

Nothing was said for a few seconds and then –

"Literally?"

Dumbledore tilted his glasses. "Literally."

"How? Why?"

"Ozland," the ancient, yet 20s-something-looking wizard boomed, "every time you become truly – and I mean truly – angry, you roll the dice, so to speak. Your magic is untamed, uncontrolled, uncontrollable – unless you receive a formal education, taxing your brains, straining your magic, and draining out your emotions on a regular basis. Have you heard of spontaneous combustion?"

"Yes."

"Need I say more?"

"Shit. Uh, sorry."

"No need to apologise, Ozland," Dumbledore said, "we are all powerful wizards and we are all under fifty-six privacy Charms, so feel free to cuss like a drunken sailor."

" . . . that whole exploding thing really, really did not make it easier to decide, just so you know."

"That should present no issue," said Dumbledore, unsheathing his wand. "Because, of course –"

HE'S GOING TO MEMORY-CHARM YOU, screamed a voice in his head.

Ozland jumped out of the chair, his eyes wide.

" – we can simply cast the Ritual of the Cubic Day. Ozland?" Dumbledore looked puzzled.

He sat back down again, thoroughly ashamed. "I thought you were going to Memory Charm me, or force me into a magical contract, or something."

"Oh," said Dumbledore, looking disappointed, "you have read Skeeter's account of the War, then?"

"What?"

Dumbledore flicked his wand, and a book whipped out from the shelf and into his hand. "Rita Skeeter wrote this . . . dramatised account of the War. Most of it was received in poor taste, but I'm told it leaves the reader with an impression of me as a manipulative, condescending, doddering old man who has a rather derivative fondness for Memory Charms."

"I haven't read it. Why don't you just have her killed if it's such an issue?"

"Come again?"

"Or frame her for something and get her locked up."

The Chief Warlock seemed disturbed by the idea. "Is that standard political practice in New Zealand?"

That there was any other form of political practice for dissidents hadn't occurred to him. "Ye-es."

"Ozland," Dumbledore drummed his fingers on the wooden surface of the table, "I am not the kind to so lightly commit an act as vile as murder, nor to condemn a woman, innocent of all crimes, but the non-crime of offending the critical sensibilities of a powerful man, to the Dementors of Azkaban. But that aside, were Lucius to, on hearing the news of Rita Skeeter's demise, realise that the informal rules of proper conduct had been fundamentally altered – that every journalist who penned an unflattering article, every writer with an inflammatory passage, every author whose depiction of his character was to him unbecoming, was game – would he not respond in kind with the means at his disposal, extenuating the bloodshed beyond my original intentions, were they murderous? Or perhaps, it is the press that you ought to imagine – one of their own kind locked away, a woman who knew no boundaries when it came to levying criticism at the wealthy and ennobled, to airing secrets, whether real or imagined, to the British public? Would they hesitate for a second longer before unveiling corruption and bringing the guilty, those untouchable by the courts, to justice? Would they, in their minds contemplating the Dementors, shelve criticism and put a halt to affronting the well-connected?"

"Good point," Ozland conceded. If he came up with that on the spot, that was impressive. "Um, I think we've wandered off-topic."

Dumbledore brought out a notebook and flipped through it. "I make sure to dispense at least three pieces of wisdom with every conversation. Ah, yes. The Ritual of the Cubic Day will, in the words of its inventor, split your mind-essence across the two faces of the Time Cube, allowing you to experience two days for each day that passes in two different countries. It is very rarely conducted."

"Because it doesn't make any sense?"

"Because the ritual is rather messily structured and my colleagues in the Cyprian Institute believe that it could be simplified along Modernist lines. Eugenray was a devout adherent to the Multimodalist school of ritual theory, which has since come out of fashion."

"Wouldn't it also create . . . internal consistency issues?" asked Ozland, skeptically. "You know, all of the usual guff with time travel. Say I wake up in New Zealand, hear on the news a bomb went off in the Underground, go to sleep, wake up in Britain which is, what, twelve hours behind – you know what I mean?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Internal consistency issues, as a general principle, can be avoided by minimising forward-backward information flow, as the chronomancers call it. Hogwarts, I would think, would be sufficiently informationally-insulated from New Zealand, hence why the ritual came to mind."

"So what's the catch?"

"A sleepless night would be a paradox, which could only be resolved through your death. However, that possibility can be prevented through familiarity with sleeping Charms, or with a specialised device, which, should you choose to perform the ritual, Professor Snape will obtain for you. The ritual also demands the fingernail from the thumb of your left-hand."

"That's it?"

"Indeed."

"Okay, let's do this."

"Excellent. First, we will have to find our way to the International Date Line over the Pacific Ocean."

"Great, what wacky mode of transportation are we going to use this – "

Dumbledore snapped his fingers, and they were suddenly hovering over the ocean under a night sky.

Ozland panicked, seeing the waves crashing beneath him. He tapped his foot, feeling an invisible surface below him that kept him from falling into the water. Wind rushed through his hair. "I'll be able to do that finger-snapping teleportation thing one day, right?"

Dumbledore laughed loudly, seeming to find his question uproariously funny, before becoming serious. "The Ritual of the Cubic Day," he said, "transports your mind-essence to your golem body in the instant following its completion – in your case, to New Zealand a few hours from now – so before we begin, there are things you must know sooner than later."

"I'm listening."

"The agenda for tomorrow. Or, from your perspective, yesterday. First, Professor Trelawney will assess your career options. Second, there will be the customary meeting with the other new non-First-Year students. That is all."

"Okay, noted."

"Now, this ritual is very clever, is filled with subtle references to many different works of fiction, contains three koans in Pig Latin, and is also a palindrome, so it would be advisable for you to listen very carefully to appreciate it fully."

#######

Luna's exposition

London Evening Herald

"WORST GANG VIOLENCE IN TWENTY YEARS":

DEATH-COUNT IN NEW ZEALAND "HOLY WAR" REACHES 1,380

[...] called a "blessed child" by the self-declared St. Matchwell, Cunningham was not available to comment [...]

The Observatory

OPINION: INTERVENTION IS NEEDED IN NZ

[...] the New Zealand branch of the Celestian Unorthodox Church has been described variously as a cult, a government, a gang, a criminal syndicate, a political party, and a private militia [...] supported by a patchwork alliance – Tip Top Ice Cream Ltd., Four Star Hotels, and the Nisango – and, our source says, is largely controlled by Rushabh (Jupiter-Minister of the New Zealand branch of the C.U.C), a warlord who threatened to detonate a nuclear device to ascend to power, Ozland Cunningham (Mars-Minister of General Affairs), an unknown who entered the upper echelons of the C.U.C after the 1991 Holy War, Evelyn Rawter (Mars-Minister of Propaganda and Public Relations), the daughter of St. Matchwell who is in formal command of the New Zealand branch of the C.U.C, and Donovan Yu (Mars-Minister of Justice & Defense), the alienated son of Four Star Hotels' CEO and the commander of FSH's militia in the region.

#######

26 AUGUST – INCORPORATED TERRITORY OF THE CELESTIAN UNORTHODOX CHURCH, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

Ozland woke up on his couch to someone banging on the door. And he woke up, and it was all a dream, he thought. And wow, that was an amazingly cleverly-written ritual.

The banging persisted, rattling windows.

"Jesus, I'm coming!" he shouted.

He reached the door in a record five seconds and swung it wide open.

It was Evelyn, standing there with the bright blue dress and flowery hat she used for formal occasions. Ozland thought it made her look like a visiting royal, which was probably the intended effect. "Where the fuck have you been and why haven't you responded my – wow, you look awful."

"Well I'm sorry, Ev, but having one of my best mates suddenly suicide on me made me want a night to myself with a couple of beers," he said, feeling immensely guilty at the lie.

"Well I'm sorry, Oz, since I've been trying to fucking reach you for the last five hours to tell you someone leaked Rushabh's suicide to the press before we could set up the official story and that, in accordance with time-honoured tradition, his fucking Unsealing Ceremony, you know, the one where they read out his successor for the position of Jupiter-Minister of the whole of New Zealand, is happening in Gordon Coates in twenty minutes and we're on the fucking guest-list."

"Oh," said Ozland.

"Yes," said Evelyn. "I thought you might say something like that."

#######

19 HAMPSTEAD ROAD, HAMPSTEAD GARDEN SUBURB, HEATHGATE, LONDON – OCTOBER 2, 1991 – ABOUT FOUR YEARS AGO

One thousand soldiers face an advancing mob, resolute.

A bottle spirals, turns three times, and shatters.

In a second, gunfire fills the air.

Blood spills out in litres, and someone screams a –

Hermione had faked a cold. She'd never done it before, so she'd gotten away with it. She was a pattern, and her parents were patterns, and they had a pattern inside them that told them how her pattern was supposed to go, and she had broken the pattern, so she'd gotten away with it. Jessica had come down with a cold, and Hermione remembered the cold-pattern, so when she woke up that morning she reproduced the cold-pattern and her parents reproduced the worried-parent-pattern and checked her temperature and said they would call the doctor and made her a mug of cocoa and told her to lie down, all according to the worried-parent-pattern. By nine o'clock, her parents were gone according to their schedule-pattern, and she began thinking.

She began thinking about Negaloth's pattern, and how she could disrupt it. She began thinking about tall skyscrapers and the economy and people in business-suits running to and fro and –

This isn't healthy, said a little voice in her head.

She responded to that little voice, saying that health was just a pattern but she was different because she controlled her own pattern. Not many people controlled their own patterns and when they did, they were considered unhealthy by normal-patterned people – so there.

May 7 was a pattern. May 7 was a recurring calendar date, and May 7 was a recurring memory. She kept remembering May 7 and remembering it again, but now she controlled her own pattern, so she didn't have to remember it.

She was reading 'The Depression and the Rise of the All-American Oligarchy' when there came a knock on the door. The postman was there, and the postman had a package. The package was for her. She opened up the package with scissor-blades, and inside the package were hundreds of black cassette tapes, all numbered.

Now this was a mystery.

She went up to her room, and put the first cassette into her cassette-player, and put the cassette-player on her nightstand, and listened. At first, there was an anti-hiss of silence, and then there was a low voice. "Hermione," it said, without inflection, so soft, so neutral that it verged on sinister. "Please, listen very closely."

Her palms began to sweat. She had the sudden, nauseating feeling that everything up until that moment had been a mechanical dream. She'd reduced her world to patterns, and forgotten that it was real.

"I am going to talk to you, and you can talk back to me, because I know what you will say. When I say 'end recording', you need to press the stop button. If I tell you not to play the tape for a certain period of time – a day, a week, a month – that's what you need to do. You can only talk after I say 'end recording'. End recording."

She obediently reached forward, pushing the stop button. "Who are you?" she asked aloud, suddenly feeling very vulnerable.

Play. "I'll give you a clue. You watched part of a documentary on me on the BBC yesterday. End recording." Stop.

She rolled a pair of dice on her nightstand. "What did I just do?"

Play. "You tried to test the outer limits of my predictive capabilities by rolling a pair of dice. Two and six. But enough of this, you must know who I am now. Any questions? End recording." Stop.

Hermione bit her lip. "What do you want, Bolshoy?"

Play. "Melodramatic, but pointed," went the voice, as if it were commenting on a half-decent TV drama. "Every thought leaves a subtle dent on the world, Hermione – every significant choice, every unspoken word. I can tell you what Anita was thinking, as the bullets passed through her body. I can tell you what emotions flashed through her brain as she bled to death on the stones of Trafalgar Square. Pain, of course – long, long, pain. But as her lungs exhaled for the last time, a dent was made in the world – the dent of a powerful thought. The powerful thought was her realisation, in her dying moments, that Hermione, her closest friend, had seen her, and that Hermione would avenge her. The future is not certain – even the brightest outlines are blurred, but I know enough to tell you this, Hermione: your vengeance is justified, and moreover, it is right."

The voice slowed. "If you give me the opportunity to help you, I will. I will not take over your project, as it were – it is yours, and yours alone. I can offer you guidance – moral or scientific – connections from Britain and beyond, and resources in abundance. Evidently I have planned in advance, hence the additional cassette tapes. I want you to think today about my offer, and remember this: Negaloth has sacrificed millions at the altar of the temple of profit. To those millions suffering at its leisure, a strike against Negaloth would be a sign that there is justice in the universe, and that they can wield it. There are very few people in Britain who can do what you could do, Hermione, and they are fewer by the day. End recording."

Stop.

"I'd have to be a real dunce not to accept your help, wouldn't I? Count me in."

Play. "Excellent. Now, listen very, very closely."

#######