Prismatic Education 48
“For the use of unregulated charms against ‘members’ of the wizarding community,” The head juror spoke, his tone making it clear what he thought of said members, “We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty.”
There were nods of agreement around the courtroom, but I kept my gaze directed straight at the judges, who each had different expressions. One was stern, the other was expressionless, while the third was approving.
“For the act of illegally entering into Britain and remaining within our borders without any official authorization,” The head juror continued, more reluctantly this time, “We, the jurors… find the defendant guilty.”
This time, the chatter from the observing crowd was louder, causing the main judge to rap his gavel several times for silence. When they had quietened down, he leaned towards his fellow judges to confer with them for a moment, before nodding to each other. He turned back to fix me with a stern look.
“Roy Staff, we have heard the evidence against you, and are about to reach our verdict. Do you have anything to add to your testimony before we pronounce judgment?”
“I saw people in trouble, and moved to save them.” I turned my head slightly to meet Dumbledore’s approving gaze from where the wizard sat in the crowd. “If given the chance, I would do it again.”
The judge grunted. “Then it is with some regret that I sentence you to deportation, to be carried out within the week. Furthermore, you will not be allowed to reenter Britain for the period of one year. Is that understood?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Then, I proclaimed this court adjourned.” Speaking out loud to the courtroom, the judge rapped his gavel once more, then looked back at me. “Come back the proper way next time.”
Guess he approves of what I did after all. I remained seated, waiting for the members of the Order present to approach while the rest of the people filed out of the courtroom.
“I thought you’d be cleared of all charges,” Gideon said to me regretfully, “Especially with Dumbledore vouching for you.”
“That would have been the best outcome,” Dumbledore agreed softly, “But you did enter the country illegally.”
I met the twinkling eyes of the person who let me use his school’s library despite it being against the rules, with an amused look of mine.
“Thanks for vouching for me though. So what’s happened since I was in custody?” I asked.
Spending a week in lockup wasn’t exactly fun, but I had earned a lot of goodwill for my actions, and so was granted the privilege of reading some books to pass the time. Some of the whispers I heard indicated that everyone was celebrating the end of the war, but the full details eluded me.
“We’ll fill you in as we walk.”
“I suppose I do need to reclaim my stuff.”
A dark-skinned Auror by the name of Kingsley Shacklebolt escorted our group, acting in his official role as my guard. Subtle signals from the others let me know that he was also a member of the Order, and he gave me a quiet nod to corroborate it.
Aside from Hogsmeade, Death Eaters also attacked several other places, clashing with the Order of the Phoenix who were vigilant against them thanks to Dumbledore’s impressively accurate foresight. Some were apprehended at the scene, others got away only to be caught later. Unfortunately, in some cases they arrived too late, only to see dead bodies and Voldemort’s Dark Mark over the location.
Yet that bit of bad news was overshadowed by the issue everyone was talking about.
The demise of the Dark Lord Voldemort.
While everyone else was busy scrambling to deal with the attacks, Voldemort went to Godric’s Hollow, the location where the Potters were hiding. Somehow he had managed to track them down, and unfortunately, the couple lost their lives. However, when he tried to kill their son Harry like he did to so many others, something happened, and the boy lived while the Dark Lord died.
That bit of news spread from those who went to investigate, and now Harry Potter was being hailed as the Boy Who Lived. Meanwhile, the rest of the country was celebrating the end of the dark times that had plagued them for years.
“Owl sightings reported by Muggles all over, and fireworks set off by enthusiastic wizards…” Benjy shook his head. “The Ministry is busy running about trying to handle all that.”
So it went just as my memories said it would. Can’t believe that I forgot about them hiding in Godric’s Hollow… the Fidelius Charm really is incredible. I decided to confirm something else as well. “By the way, what about the matter I left a message about?”
Fabian exchanged glances with his brother, nodding. “You were right,” He told me, “It was Pettigrew who was the spy.”
“How did you find that out?” I inquired.
“After we received your message…” He began to fill me in.
My message was just a warning based on my memories, to keep an eye on Sirius Black in case he actually knew where Pettigrew was. Benjy had made use of his skills at surveillance to do so, and when the man went off in pursuit, he failed to notice several Order members following him at a distance. Thanks to that, when he finally cornered Pettigrew in a mundane street, the others were able to swoop in to apprehend the both of them, with Memory Charms for the Muggles who witnessed their magic.
A dose of truth potion, and both of them spilled their secrets under questioning. Black was innocent, apart from lying that he didn’t know where Pettigrew was, in order to protect the other wizard’s role as the Potters’ true Secret Keeper. However, Pettigrew’s case was a different matter.
He admitted how he had gone over to the Death Eaters’ side because he was scared for his life, believing that the Order was losing. In order to prove his loyalty, he revealed several secrets to Voldemort, such as the hiding places of the Order members and their skills. Many of their deaths could be placed on his head.
And that included the Potters.
Black was initially meant to be the Secret Keeper for the couple’s Fidelius Charm, but he persuaded them to change over to Pettigrew, while he acted as the decoy. Obviously, that backfired, as Pettigrew told Voldemort about the secret, allowing the Dark Lord to locate and corner the Potters.
There were several other corroborating pieces of evidence, such as Voldemort’s Dark Mark, faded as it was, on the man’s arm, and the fact that he had Voldemort’s wand in his possession. Apparently, after Voldemort was ‘vanquished’, Pettigrew had snuck into the place, and decided to take it with him for some reason.
Our conversation was put on hold for the moment when we arrived at the Ministry repository, where a Ministry employee brought out my bag and staff, waiting around for me to inspect everything to make sure it was there.
Spare clothes, books, my crafting tools… they’re all there. I confirmed that there wasn’t anything missing. Got a bunch of tracking spells though. Gotta clear them away before I go retrieve the rest from where I stashed them.
“If everything’s satisfactory, please sign here to verify that you have reclaimed all your possessions.” The Ministry staff requested, sliding a receipt form across the desk.
I obligingly signed it after confirming that it wasn’t any binding contract, and he filed it away before waiting for us to leave.
“So what now?” I asked Dumbledore as we took the lift upwards.
“Repair and rebuild, I believe,” The wizard responded, “There were a few Death Eaters who have evaded justice, but I have faith that they will be tracked down and captured soon enough.”
“What about Harry Potter? Assuming he really was responsible for the Dark Lord’s fall, then he needs to be protected, right?”
“Dumbledore has him in a safe place,” Fabian answered, “And don’t worry, we’re keeping an eye on him ourselves. Including Sirius, he’s the boy’s godfather, don’t you know?”
“Huh. That’s news to me.”
The matter of Pettigrew’s fate went unmentioned. Perhaps that was for the best.
My remaining time in this country passed quickly, especially with all sorts of things occurring one after another. Some more Death Eaters were caught and sentenced to jail, others got off by claiming they were under the Imperius Curse, possibly with money changing hands, even more innocent people were proven to have been under the Curse, and some believed innocent were found to have actually been Death Eaters.
I didn’t envy the Aurors who had to work overtime. Especially with the ongoing celebrations throughout the country risking the Statute of Secrecy.
Speaking of celebrations, the Order of the Phoenix gathered for a private one, and I received an invitation. I got to meet several members I hadn’t met before, like Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and the Longbottoms, who brought their young child along with them to the gathering. The young Neville was fussed over by many of the adults there, which made the general mood hopeful for the future after the solemn toasts made in the memory of the fallen.
Black was despondent over the loss of his closest friend, but cheered up slightly after I gave him a few words of encouragement to take care of his friend’s son.
Too much time has passed for me to Revive them… not that I know if it can work on someone killed by the Killing Curse. I took another sip of my Butterbeer drink, which tasted pretty great, as I watched Black go poke Neville’s cheek with a fond smile.
Similarly, the other members had encouragement of their own for me, telling me how I would be warmly welcomed back in Britain after the term of my sentence was up, and other declarations of friendship. I had to admit it was pretty nice.
However, I was feeling the urge to move on once again, both for adventure, and to see what other planes could make of this plane’s resources. So when the deadline arrived, I accepted the Portkey a Ministry Auror handed me, and let it take me out of Britain’s borders.
I would return in the future for sure, in hopes of completing a mana bond with the castle that bordered the lake I bonded to.
…
It’s been about half a year since I came to this plane? I tried to recall as I walked up the muddy road towards the temple city in the distance. Rather awful weather though, but at least it’s warmer than Britain.
The sky felt like it was dumping buckets of water down, though I was thankfully protected by a water-immunity aura, and the falna enabled me to still see quite well where normal people would struggle to make out anything past ten meters.
Thankfully, it started to clear up as I got closer to the gates of Winding Circle Temple. The guards, enduring the weather with stern dedication to their duty, stopped me and asked for my name. When I gave it, one of them did a double-take, before looking at me with respectful awe. Clearly he recognized me, though I couldn’t recall seeing his features before.
“Honored Moonstream said if you came again, to inform you that she would like to meet you,” He told me.
“Alright.” I agreed to head over to the Hub directly, instead of the meandering route I took the first time.
From behind me, my ears picked up the man telling his buddies just what I did during the pirate invasion at the end of summer. Wonder what sort of rumors have sprung up about my deeds while I was gone?
As I neared the Hub, I saw several mage dedicates of all four elements leaving the administration building, all of them wearing grim or troubled expressions. Something was definitely up here, and I had a strong feeling I was going to get involved.
Moonstream was in her office, and she looked a little stressed to my eyes when I was let in to see her. The surprise on her face when she caught sight of me was quickly replaced with professionalism.
“Roy, I wasn’t expecting to see you here again.”
“I suppose my departure was a bit hasty, but I just felt like visiting Winding Circle again.”
She let out a slow breath through her mouth. “Unfortunately, it appears that once again you’ve picked an unfortunate time to visit.”
I knew it. “Okay, so what’s going on exactly? I saw several dedicates leaving this building like they just received bad news.”
“Because they did,” Moonstream told me matter-of-factly. “On your way here, did you pass through Summersea?”
I was surprised by the change in subject. “The capital? No, I passed by it entirely. Why?”
“Reports have confirmed a brewing epidemic there.” The woman said softly. “Possibly a new disease.”
My body tensed on hearing that news, as well as hearing what went unspoken. I’d have been in quarantine.
Strixhaven was generally healthy, especially since Witherbloom handled any diseases that could spring up, whether it was making them or their cures. But even then, I knew the dangers of such things, especially when the population had no idea what to expect.
“I’m afraid I didn’t study healing in my university,” I admitted, “But if there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.”
“Your help will be greatly appreciated,” Moonstream’s grateful tone made it clear how much it meant to her. “Gods willing, this ordeal will soon pass.”
For the time being, I was given a room in the Air Temple dormitories, and assigned to work with First Dedicate Crane. The man was in charge of analyzing the disease, and brewing up a cure, and from what I learned, he wasn’t the only one hard at work.
One of the things the locals used to research disease were sample boxes. They used sterilized cloth patches to collect samples of matter from the sick person and those close to them, such as blood and other bodily fluids, and stored them in bags spelled to exclude anything but the samples. The bagged samples were then stored in a sealed case, to be conveyed to the disease researchers, who would use them to craft the appropriate spells, and hopefully a cure.
However, Winding Circle’s stock of sample boxes had run quite low, and so the smithies were busy trying to turn out more. Apparently the stock deficiency was something that had many senior dedicates angry, but I was more interested in the way the boxes were made. Use of special oils to draw out a magical symbol before physically marking it with an engraving tool made the spell more strongly embedded, a technique that the local mages developed over a long time.
Similarly, the personal protection equipment for the healers and disease researchers needed further enhancement, something that Dedicate Crane insisted on. I met Lark and Sandry again, but they were too hard at work to do anything more than give a quick greeting. In its place, I got to observe how the weaving mages mixed up a herbal oil, charging it with their power to bring out the desired qualities of the ingredients, before they worked it into the cloth to imbue it with the protection spells.
But I didn’t get to observe much more, because I was desperately needed in the lanky Air dedicate’s research sanctum, which was in the greenhouse I had seen when I was here before. From the way he behaved, I could instantly tell he wasn’t easy to work with, and I was right. More than a few workers were banished for failing to keep up with his exacting standards.
And it sucks that I’m one of those who can keep up, because the falna makes me faster and more precise, not to mention the usefulness of my computational magic. I resisted the urge to sigh. Can’t even do proper research because of how busy he keeps me.
Since I didn’t have any knowledge of their disease research methods, the bulk of my duties was transcribing Dedicate Crane’s words as he verbalized the results of his experiments. I did so by typing out as fast as he said them, on a glowing keyboard. It was apparently a spell none of the other workers had seen before, though they learned not to stare after Crane harshly scolded them for getting distracted. After each report was done, I printed them out on paper, and reproduced copies for others to read. After that, I sorted and filed them accordingly for the next batch of assistants who came in to replace those Crane banished.
Meanwhile, things got progressively worse. The disease was quite contagious, apparently having gotten into the water. With the stormy weather, the water level was going to rise, and possibly cause it to leak into the other wells used by the citizens of Summersea, not just the ones in the slums. There were talks of hospital camps and burial pits being set up. It didn’t help that the disease was aggravatingly resistant to research.
While I couldn’t say I was that interested in the topic like a Witherbloom student, it was a little fascinating how Crane and his team went about doing so. Workers put samples taken from multiple patients through a distillation process, by dissolving the cloth squares in a magical mixture that would remove itself afterwards, leaving only the essence for others to work with. The essence was then subjected to several chemicals to see how it reacted, in order to identify the ‘keys’ to target when mixing up a cure.
It’s called blue pox because of the blue splotches the sick people have on their bodies, but what kills them is the fever and dehydration. I flipped through some of the older notes from the previous scribe.
According to them, Crane had tried using diagnosis powders initially. They would produce a response based on their reaction and give the researchers an idea of what would work for a cure. However, the distilled disease caused them to break up for some reason, and the same thing happened with various other compounds. That made the research progress slow to a crawl as Crane was forced to work with the most basic of options.
However, even the slowest speed of progress was still progress, and after nearly a week of effort, a breakthrough was made.
“I believe we have done it,” Crane said tiredly through his mask, “We have a possible diagnosis method.”
He stood over a crystal tray with multiple wells filled with yellowish liquid, the essence of the disease. Next to it was a small jar filled with red oil. When he had added some of the oil to the essence, it turned white, making the mixture a milky yellow. Changing his gloves, he dabbed a bit on a small patch of bare skin, where it stayed red. He did the same for me, with the same result.
“Osprey,” He called his assistant, a yellow-robed woman, “Get a copy of the recipe from Roy, and mix up some to test everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.” He repeated. “It should serve to identify who has the disease. Yanna willing, perhaps Rosethorn won’t be wasting her talents in quarantine.”
“Yes, sir.” The woman accepted the paper I held out to her, and walked out of the room.
Crane looked back at me. “We are done for the day. Clean up your workspace, and you can leave.”
I nodded back, stretching my slightly stiff body before doing as he instructed. The man himself carried the tray to the cleaners, where it would be emptied and boiled to sterilize. I took one last look at the notes describing the various tests he did, before shutting them away in an airtight cabinet. After everyone left, a cleansing steam would be pumped into the place, and it wouldn’t do to have the painstakingly recorded notes turn soggy and unreadable.
As I left the place, I couldn’t help thinking about the disease’s listed symptoms. This decomposition effect and fever… there’s something about it.
Afterword: And that’s the end of the Wizarding World for the time being. A great deal of butterflies have been caused; the Lestranges were subdued, Pettigrew was caught and Sirius is free, several Death Eaters have been eliminated, and so on. When Roy eventually returns, it’s gonna be different for sure.
For now, I decided to have him go back to the Circleverse, because the intricacies of how they handle magic that’s so strongly meshed with nature captured my attention once again. As you can see, he got caught up in another incident, this one being a whole epidemic. I feel like it leaned more towards tell than show, but I think I needed the balance after too much talking.
Do let me know your thoughts in the comments!