Auror Office, MACUSA Department for Magical Security.
MACUSA HQ, Woolworth Building, New York City, NY, USA.
Early Twenty-First Century.
Tall, stern, brisk, grey hair creeping among the dark brown, Jane Ironsides strode between the Aurors’ desks, her heels clicking rhythmically, ominously on the tiled floor.
Not so long ago, her father had been Deputy Secretary for all of DMS, and she strove to carry on his legacy of law and order, fervent patriotism for both MACUSA and the No-Maj United States, and zero tolerance for threats to either. She wasn’t the friendliest, but she felt she got the job done.
Of course, when she wasn’t being-- undermined-- by namby-pamby goody-two-shoes bleeding-heart intellectual-elite snowflakes--
--ahem. Anyway.
Coming towards the heart of the Auror Office, Ironsides glanced around, hands on her hips, golden-brown eyes narrowed severely.
“I’m looking for Maya Rosario. Rosario? C’mon, speak up, I don’t have all day.”
Not too terribly long after The Battle of Hogwarts.
@thedoctorsimpossiblegirl
Doctoral candidate Thomas Stearns “T.S.” Decker-- working as an Unspeakable in The Department of Mysteries even as he studied further to earn his degree --wandered through the offices of The Auror Department, hands in the pockets of his signature blue Muggle-style suit trousers, glancing about and looking moderately annoyed.
After a moment, twisting, and turning-- squinting, frowning--
--T.S. glanced about at the other Aurors bustling about the bullpen and called--
“Oi! Anyone seen Potter! Or Weasley? They’re not in another reorg meeting, are they?”
Not much of anyone paid attention to him-- but that was all right, he didn’t expect them to have an answer for him. Potter and Weasley were busy revolutionizing Magical Law Enforcement, not everyone could be expected to keep a pin in them.
But as he turned slowly again, he rested his dark dark deep deep brown gaze on a dark-haired woman carrying a stack of papers for one of the higher-ranking Aurors--
--and he hesitated.
He had, on a Christmas that still hadn’t happened yet, been given the ability to perceive timelines so that he could navigate in multiple dimensions and not interfere with events that were fixed in time.
And this woman... this woman... she had broken, tangled timelines emanating from her in every direction, the most complex chronological anomaly he’d ever yet seen.
“What on Earth...?” he murmured slowly.
And then he focused on her face.
Wait.
He knew her, didn’t he?
What was her name-- Ozzy? Oz... ma? Hung out with that odd chap Undecim, made brilliant souffles?
But wasn’t she a little older?
No?
He stood staring at her from across the bullpen, eyes narrowed and concentrating, trying to trace those timelines but keeping on getting lost in the array of them...
Potter!verse: Tommy Decker and The Eternal Verities, Scene 16:
33a PECKENDER STREET, N1
September 2, 2020.
The place has been rebuilt, impeccably, since decades ago Nial “The Basilisk” Ross sent it whirling back in time thousands of years to deprive Dumbledore of Dirk Gently’s intel at a crucial moment. In fact, it had barely taken hours for Ministry of Magic workers to reconjure the missing flat and office brick by brick and modify nearby Muggle memories to suggest that it had never been gone.
But a more important renovation has been performed in the years since.
EVELYN ALVAR has moved in with DIRK, their ridiculous unconventional relationship has blossomed, their daughter RANDOM has begun to grow up-- and 33a Peckender Street has become a home.
It’s up to the front of this home that T.S. DECKER walks, looking perturbed this otherwise fine morning.
He raises his fist to knock on the door, but before his knuckles can rap upon its surface--
EVELYN (from off): It’s open!
T.S. stops, bemused, and nudges the door wide. He finds EVELYN standing over dropcloths and painting merrily in the kitchen, humming to herself in an appropriately Dumbledorian fashion.
T.S.: That’s a neat trick, you pick that up from Professor Gently?
EVELYN glances at him, a smudge of purple paint on her cheek and a grin on her face.
EVELYN: Sort of! He told me you might be coming. Here, let me wash this paint off of my hands, we can catch up, I can let you know what Siobhan’s been up to in her time.
T.S.: Ah! Cheers, Professor.
EVELYN turns to the sink, wiping her hands on a towel and then rinsing them.
EVELYN: Neither of us have worked for Hogwarts for years, I know you know this, I don’t care how muddled up you’ve made your personal timeline!
T.S.: Old habits die hard. I’ve been wearing suits and ties since primary school.
T.S. moves closer to the painting, pops on his spectacles, muses over the artwork.
T.S.: This is quite lovely, some of your best work! Most Wizarding paintings are by very nature lifelike, but yours I think I could just... fall into.
EVELYN: Thank you! That’s high praise!
He adjusts his glasses, squinting, perhaps activating one of his spectacles’ many alternate modes-- maybe something Omniocular?
T.S.: You know-- there’s something terribly familiar about your brush strokes?
EVELYN blinks, moving around behind him.
EVELYN: Yeah? In what way?
T.S.: Mm. Not sure. (he tilts his head this way and that) Like a deja vu that hasn’t happened yet, if that makes any sense at all. Still, as I said, quite lovely!
EVELYN: Thank you. Still, I think it’s missing something. Just haven’t been able to put my finger on it yet.
T.S. nods in a very RICH PARKER fashion, seems legit, and takes his glasses back off.
T.S.: I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
EVELYN: Yes. Now, you’re here for the calculator?
T.S. blinks.
T.S.: I’m not sure why it even surprises me anymore, but it does. He told me yesterday to call when I needed the calculator-- I didn’t know I needed it at the time but I’m trying to backtrace the timeline on this wand--
EVELYN leads him through to the other room.
EVELYN: He’s had today marked on the calendar for a week. Yeah, come here, it’s on his desk. Dirk himself is over in America. He and his friend Rip Hunter are chasing down this complete lunatic twat who’s running around The Pacific Northwest claiming to be Dirk, it’s besmirching his good name and making a mockery of his techniques.
T.S.: So much for imitation being the sincerest form of flattery!
EVELYN: Well, to be honest, it doesn’t seem like a very sincere imitation.
Approaching DIRK’s desk, EVELYN shuffles some papers around and comes up with The I’Ching Calculator, handing it cheerfully to T.S.
He glances at the screen as she hands it to him, and chuckles softly.
T.S.: Oh, that’s familiar. “A suffusion of yellow.”
Potter!verse: Tommy Decker and The Eternal Verities, Scene 15:
DIAGON ALLEY, THEORY
September 1, 2020.
It’s a beautiful little bakery.
There’s a reason that SCORPIUS MALFOY associates the smell of bread with affection, beauty and love, and it may be because he’s eaten the bread served in this little nook near the corner of Diagon and Horizont.
If your happy place has ever been a warm kitchen and a clean shop with knick-knacks on the walls, the smell of sweets and savories alike wafting through the air-- that’s what Theory is. That happy place.
It’s night, now, almost closing.
There’s a tiny, slender, pale woman-- like, greyishly pale --with even paler hair in a choppy, slightly-scraggly a-line cut, and she’s leaning over the glass case and tucking that hair behind an ear as she scrutinizes the bakery’s wares.
LIV: Hey, ah-- weird question. I know it’s a stretch. But you don’t have anything with ghost peppers baked into it, do you? I mean, like-- really spicy peppers, not peppers that have remained in this world as intangible shades instead of moving on to some sort of piquant and lachrymatory afterlife?
Leaning on the other side of the counter, her dark hair tied neatly back, her eyebrow bemusedly cocked, MAE HARVEY shakes her head.
MAE: Not that I’ve got freshly baked, m’afraid. But I could make you a custom order if you’re in town for a couple more days?
LIV: Yeah, I don’t fly back to Seattle until Thursday.
MAE: I can work with that!
She fishes behind the counter for a moment and comes up with a well-thumbed notebook with assorted improvised bookmarks, she picks one and opens the book, handing it to LIV.
MAE: Go through this, all right? Buncha recipes here with sriracha, an’ I can kick the kick up a notch if you need a deeper burn.
LIV’s eyes light up like it’s Christmas and she nods gratefully.
LIV: Oh my God, thank you. You are my actual hero. I haven’t had a good croissant since-- (awkward pause) --it’s... been awhile?
MAE: M’at your service, then. (grin and a nod) I’ll try to make you a croissant worth waitin’ for.
At this, the bell above the door jingles, and WILLOW ROSENBERG enters from off with two young kids with her, very similar in appearance and identical in age-- SOPHIE and SIMON.
SOPHIE & SIMON (simultaneously): MUMMY!
MAE grins at them, waves at WILLOW, nods to LIV.
MAE: ‘Scuse me for a moment.
LIV: Oh, yeah, pffft, take your time, you’re doing me this huge favor and I’m going to gripe about you doing your thing?
MAE: Thanks all the same, though!
She moves quickly out from behind the counter and meets the twins’ crashing hug; they’re not babies anymore, but they’re definitely still young enough to miss their mama all day. Then she glances up at WILLOW with a grin.
MAE: How was their day? Tell me they’re better behaved than their brother.
WILLOW: Nothing I couldn’t handle. Though it helps that I magicked the contents of their toy box into re-enacting half of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.
MAE: The classics! I approve.
WILLOW: I thought permaybehaps you might.
SOPHIE: Mum! Auntie Tara took us to Sugarplum’s!
SIMON: All my Bertie Beans tasted like bogeys.
MAE: Ah. Supportin’ the competition, are we? You traitors!
WILLOW: Aw, c’mon, kids, ix-nay on the ugarplum-- uh, Say? Look, I’m really good at regular Latin, Pig Latin’s just not required reading.
MAE (laughing): S’all right! Really, s’ perfectly fine! I don’t even mind if they’re a little sugar-hyper. M’ just grateful you could watch ‘em while Isaac was at the meetin’.
WILLOW: Least we could do. Place is always super quiet with Connor gone back to school.
There’s a flicker of movement outside, visible through the front window of the shop, and MAE and WILLOW both instantly tense, WILLOW whirling to glare out the window, MAE’s hand immediately darting to the wand in the pocket of her apron.
Startled, wary, making a concerted effort to stay calm and keep her heart-rate down, LIV glances up from the special order book.
LIV: Everything okay?
There’s a long, tense moment, as WILLOW and MAE are both peering through the window and probing the somewhat darkened street outside the shop. And then the moment passes, like letting out a held breath, and they relax again.
WILLOW (mutters): A presence I’ve not felt since...
MAE: S’all right, dearie-duck. Thank you for askin’, though. Just thought I saw somethin’. Somethin’ I saw once in a haunted house...
Potter!verse: Tommy Decker and The Eternal Verities, Scene 14:
HOGWARTS, McGONAGALL’s OFFICE
September 1, 2020.
The office sits and waits, the paintings on the wall either reading or snoozing or meandering.
And then comes the unmistakable sound of displacement, the twisting and bending of reality-- a Portkey.
PROFESSORS McGONAGALL and JUPITER materialize suddenly, each of them holding an end of a blackened old kettle.
IVAN lets go of the kettle as quickly and sharply as he can.
McGONAGALL: Why, Ivan, are you quite all right? From the look on your face, it’s as though The Devil just stood on your grave!
IVAN: It’s all right, Headmistress, I’m-- I was just remembering that night. With Potter. Shipton, Decker, Sparrow and I were trying to use that very Portkey, in this very room--
McGONAGALL: Oh, dear, I’m so terribly sorry. I should have thought! Why did you not say something?
IVAN: It’s okay, Minerva, I’ll be all right, I just need a minute. We need to get downstairs or we’ll miss the Sort--
He stops, and turns, and frowns, and then his eyes widen at an empty chair.
IVAN: Oh my God. It’s you!
McGONAGALL may be going on triple digits in age, but she hasn’t missed a step, her wand is out in an instant.
McGONAGALL: HOMINEM REVELI--
MYSTERIOUS VOICE (from off): No, no, it’s all right, I’ll do it.
And then, rippling into visibility-- comes SALLY SPARROW. She looks very tired, and she looks like she’s been crying.
McGONAGALL: Salamandra? It’s been decades! My centaur friend always speaks highly of you but I never thought I’d see you again with my own eyes!
SALLY (sniffling): And I-- never thought I’d have to see this room again. Yeah, Ivan, I remember that night, too. I remember everyone we’ve lost.
IVAN produces a handkerchief from the pocket of his robes and puffs it over to SALLY with a waft of Aeromancy.
IVAN: I’m so sorry, Sally. But what’s happened? What’s brought you out of hiding?
SALLY gratefully catches the hanky and dabs at her eyes, but her expression is no less shattered.
SALLY: All these years I’ve been seeing them off from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters in September, and off again from Hogsmeade in June, making sure they got here safely, and back again. It was my solemn duty. My sole reason for leaving my woodland sanctuary, the only human permitted in The Forest. And I-- I never thought to take the train. I never thought to guard them on the train!
IVAN and McGONAGALL share a stunned, horrified look.
McGONAGALL: Salamandra. Sally. What’s happened to the children?
Potter!verse: Tommy Decker and The Eternal Verities, Scene 13:
MINISTRY OF MAGIC, JUST OUTSIDE THE GRAND MEETING ROOM
September 1, 2020.
HARRY POTTER stands by the doors, occasionally jostled as the people file out. Some of them give him apologetic looks, others give him resentful and mocking ones. He appears to be searching for DRACO MALFOY to try again to set the record straight, but to no avail.
He sighs, frustrated to no end, and runs a hand through his hair... and as he does so, he pauses, hand on his forehead, and traces his scar with a fingertip and a pensive frown.
As the crowd thins somewhat, IVAN JUPITER is revealed to be standing by the doorframe, and he steps forward a bit.
He’s changed somewhat since he was a boy. He still has that blond hair, those Knight Bus purple eyes and the matching eyebrows, but there’s a little more age upon his face now. And peeking out from under his hair on his forehead is one of the arrow tattoos traditionally worn by the monastic Masters of Aeromancy-- though instead of sky blue, as had been AANG’s, IVAN’s are purple.
Because of course they are.
IVAN: Harry.
HARRY (turning to see him): Oh! Professor-- or is it Master?
IVAN: Both, I guess, if I were teaching you Aeromancy at Hogwarts. But since I’m not, “Ivan” is definitely better.
HARRY: What can I do for you, Ivan? Did you have some insight to help that you couldn’t announce in front of the others?
IVAN: In a manner of speaking. Though I-- I’ve always been good at seeing true things and secret things, I don’t have any intel on Voldemort or any kind of-- resurrection.
HARRY sighs, and turns away, his scowl quickly returning.
HARRY: No, of course not.
IVAN watches him quietly for a moment.
IVAN: My head’s been hurting, too.
He touches the point of the arrowhead on his forehead, adorning his crown chakra-- his Third Eye.
HARRY blinks, turns to look at him again.
HARRY: Wait, what?
IVAN: I don’t know if it means anything. But I had a headache, once, a terrible headache that put me in The Hospital Wing, the night of The Battle for The Department of Mysteries. After that night, my life was literally never the same.
He takes a breath.
IVAN: And these last couple days, I’ve been having that headache again. The exact same part of my head. And it’s been getting worse.
HARRY: I’m sorry, Ivan. Really, I am.
IVAN: I appreciate that, really I do. But I’m okay. I’m not fishing for your sympathy. I just-- I just need you to know that you’re not alone. And that you’re believed in.
HARRY smiles wearily. He doesn’t seem entirely convinced. But he appreciates it.
Melanie wanted to stir up some ideas, and today that stirring needed blue and bright windows. so she wound her way up to the Ravenclaw tower, found no trouble with the riddling knocker, and settled in with her sketchbook on the floor by one of the windows. there might have been one or two other people there, but they were content enough to leave her alone, which suited her just fine.
Potter!verse: Tommy Decker and The Eternal Verities, Scene 11:
XAVIER’S, SALEM CENTER, NEW YORK
September 1, 2020.
Hi, everyone! Wade “Deadpool” Harkness here.
Oh, wait, character names are in all caps, my bad-- WADE “DEADPOOL” HARKNESS here--
--it’s a little after way the fuck too early o’clock here, but Headmaster LOGAN has a strict pre-sunrise training montage policy even on the first day of school.
Even on goddamn Labor Day, can you believe that? There should be a serious moratorium on labored breathing on Labor Day, that shit’s unAmerican.
Of course, he’s Canadian, and I’m only half American, so I suppose it’s a grey area. Or is that “gray area?” I’m not technically from a bilingual household unless you count Welsh or rhyming slang but you’d never know it from how hard it is for me to spell colors. ...colours?
Anyway, here I am, walking to class, it’s barely six thirty in the ass-munch, but I’m styling as all get-out with my swank Ninja Hello Kitty backpack and my matching criss-crossed katanas-- they were a gift from mom, my mom is awesome, HI MOM! --and what should my wondering ears perceive but the ringtone of my one true dollface, Jen-- sorry, fuck, I’m going to keep doing that-- JENNY DECKER. Annual school-year tradition, she calls me from the train.
And so of course I answer. I mean, of course I do.
Even if I wasn’t head-over-Chuck Taylors in love with this woman, she’s such a stone-cold ass-kicker I wouldn’t risk pissing her off even with my advanced combat training and gift-yet-curse healing factor.
I mean, look at this face. I look like someone who somehow survived when some asshole burned down the burn ward. I’m gonna do better? Noooooooo.
JENNY (from off): Mornin’, Wade. How’s the State of The Union?
WADE: Mornin’, sweetest of corn-muffins. It ain’t bad. Taco Tuesday in the cafeteria, so I’m looking forward to some jubilant tastebuds and then a hard burn in the men’s room about twenty minutes after. Yourself?
JENNY (from off): That is... so gross.
WADE: But worth it!
JENNY (from off): I’m good, I’m a bit worried about my--
She stops talking for a sec, but I don’t mind, I’m good at filling silences.
For instance, full expositional disclosure, right now I’m walking across the quad to the Hank McCoy Science Center to get a lecture on thermodynamics from a Southern gent who can explode and fly kind of like my friend Negasonic. Over yonder is a couple of teachers comparing notes and drinking Dunky’s, mmm, smell that pumpkin-flavored syrup-- there’s Lorna--
--shit.
--LORNA JUPITER, green-haired green-eyed with magical magnetism, she’s cool, bet she was just Facetiming with her husband IVAN and daughter KARIS over at King’s Cross a few minutes ago. And there’s NATHAN CHRISTOPHER DAYSPRING ASKANI’SON LOTSOFNAMES “CABLE” SUMMERS, as big and burly and half-techno-organic as ever. And then there’s RAHNE “WOLFSBANE” SINCLAIR, she’s our liaison with Ilvermorny, helps me and my sister JEAN GRAY GREY HARKNESS with our magical courseload on top of all this high-falutin’ upstate x-gene schoolin’. Plus, she’s an actual freakin’ werewolf, how cool-for-school is that?
--fuck, JEN’s talking again, I hope I didn’t miss anything, worst boyfriend, hooboy--
JENNY (from off): --hang on. Hang on. I think someone’s on the roof of the train. Maybe it’s Nattie, or Darkholme, or one of the other-- wallcrawlers--
Then I hear the muffled but distinct sound of explosions. And not magic-wand explosions either, you learn to tell the difference, those foley guys really know how to vary the sound effects--
JENNY (from off): Holy freakin’ Dumbledore I think someone just threw a grenade up there!
My girl’s in trouble! The Hogwarts Express is under attack! It’s the Libyans!
WADE: HOLD ON, BABY-BOO! I’M COMIN’ TO HELP!
I sprint like a motherfucker across the quad, jump a hedge, flying-tackle Cable CABLE, bear-hug his cyborg arm for dear honky life and yell
WADE: PROFESSOR! BODY SLIDE BY TWO!
All three teachers stare at me like I just sprouted a second head. Which honestly I would not put past me, but it hasn’t happened so far. Just like nothing happened when I tried to activate CABLE’s fancy future teleport thingy. Stupid voiceprint lock.
CABLE knocks my ass into the grass with the kind of backhand SERENA WILLIAMS would be proud of.
CABLE: Harkness, what the Hell?
WADE: SIR! RESCUE OP, SIR! MY GIRLFRIEND’S TAKING FIRE, SIR! ALSO MAY I SAY YOU LOOK AS RUGGEDLY HANDSOME AS EVER, SIR!
JENNY (from off): Wade! Wade, it’s okay! The witch who sells candy on the train was trying to subdue some students going AWOL-- using pumpkin-based explosives, how offensive is that, Uncle Rich lost a leg to a pumpkin bomb--
Oh, well, that’s a relief.
WADE: Puddin’, I’ma need a minute here, I may have just gotten to second base with Professor Cable’s mad-arm.
JENNY (heavy, exasperated sigh from off): Oh, man. Okay, talk to you later, you dumb dunce. Say hey to Jean and Negasonic for me. Love you!
WADE: Wuv yoo. (blows cartoonishly noisy kisses, then hangs up) So. How Double-Secret Probationed am I?
LORNA hoists me back onto my feet by Ferromagusing my swords, at least she seems to think I’m funny.
LORNA: Get to class, Wade. Try not to jump-scare any more teachers on the way, wouldn’t want to get bisected by Psylocke. Again.
WADE: You got it, Perfesser Greengenes. Perfesser Sinclair, you’re gonna love my essay on William the Pukwudgie!
RAHNE (knackered but... tolerant): I dinnae doubt it, Harkness. Now git on wi’ ye!
WADE: Och aye! Hoots mon! I’ll be oot and aboot!
RAHNE: Nae... dinnae. Dinnae do that.
I dash off, doing my best John Zoidberg woop-woop-woop-woop-woop!
LORNA: He does that to you, too? He’s always talking to me in this awful Irish accent. Lucky Charms and all. I’m half-German and I was named by foster parents, not that that stops him.
Hey, I do a great Irish accent. Liam Neeson would shit his pants!
Anyway, of course this next bit doesn’t have anything to do with me, I’m not even onstage, so it’s stupid boring and you should probably stop reading here. Seriously, it’s just going to end up on the cutting room floor once the theater slashes our budget again--
--you’re still here? Fine.
Headmaster LOGAN, the aforementioned slave-driver of the four-AM ten-mile run, comes loping up all Neanderthal knuckle-draggy and gives those other three teachers The FOREST WHITAKER Eye.
LOGAN: Sinclair. There’s a Portkey in my office. Just got word through MACUSA that th’ Ministry o’ Magic’s callin’ a big emergency meetin’ t’night an’ Minister Granger-Weasley‘s specifically requestin’ yer presence.
RAHNE does a classic double-take. LOGAN’s lucky she doesn’t spit-take him all over with pumpkin hot chocolate.
RAHNE: D’ye ken what it’s aboot-- about? Criminy, now he’s got me doin’ it.
LOGAN: Didn’t say, I didn’t ask. Get goin’. I’ll take over yer classes.
RAHNE: But, Headmaster, ye cannae cast magic!
LOGAN: I’ll make ‘em do a ten-mile run or somethin’.
