Thresholds

At least it wasn't the middle of the night again. No one was half-naked and in fact they were all very properly clothed, well-groomed for the most part – someone's hair always insisting on being the exception – and certainly looking a little less sleep-deprived overall. No candles were burning and the room was instead brightly lit by low, early morning sunrays falling through the two high windows behind the desk. One of the windows stood slightly ajar, letting a fresh yet gentle breeze inside, the temperature all around still pleasant enough. Indeed, judging strictly by the look of the room itself and not the persons occupying it in that moment, an outside observer might very much have been inclined to infer that this was a room that would be perfectly nice to be in. And that was really all the good one could reasonably say about the situation.

Harry and Hermione sat in what quickly seemed to become their usual chairs, with Hermione – from their perspective – sitting in the left one and Harry to her right, about a meter apart. While fully clothed and in no need of blankets this time around, neither of them looked any less uncomfortable than during their last visit. Both of them sat with no small deal of tension, straight and stiff. Hermione held her folded hands in her lap while Harry kept his own on the armrests. While Hermione firmly bit her lower lip – sometimes chewing a little on it, sometimes not – Harry seemed to be poking about his teeth and the insides of his cheeks with his tongue, presumably for no other reason than the complete lack of any alternative things to do.

And then, of course, there was Professor McGonagall, sitting across from them in her leather-upholstered armchair behind her ever-tidy desk. Her glasses were, as was seldom seen, not on her nose for once, but lying on the desktop in front of her. She herself had both her elbows on the table, with one hand reaching up to support her bowed head, slowly rubbing her temples with thumb and middle finger in ongoing circles. Whether she held her eyes closed or not the two students in attendance could not tell, but they had altogether stopped looking expectantly at the professor a minute or two ago. And then they had stopped looking helplessly and unsurely at each other a short while after that, and finally had settled for staring blankly at random points of their individual choice.

It so appeared as if not even the fact that this time around Harry and Hermione had come to her willingly, instead of her practically dragging them there by the scruffs of their necks, did anything to improve the poor professor's condition.

Both their minds, independently of each other, wandered back to the early morning hours when once more they had awoken together, albeit under slightly changed circumstances. They had both been so tired that they had decided to just go back to sleep right there and then, or – to be more precise – had been far too exhausted and comfortable to consciously decide against it before slowly drifting off to sleep again, staying conscious just barely long enough to agree that they would dutifully inform the Head of House Gryffindor about these newest turns of events first thing in the morning. And while indeed they had done just that and gone straight to her personal study even before breakfast, sneakily leaving the dorm room before all the others woke up, right now neither of them was entirely sure that it had been the best of ideas.

For what seemed to be a long time, even though no more than two minutes passed, it was so quiet in the room that the only constant sounds to be heard came from outside: the soft sighing of the wind and the gentle rustling of leaves it so playfully swirled around, or the occasional chirp of a few birds saying their late farewells to their summer home. It was so quiet, however, that to no one inside anything seemed louder than their own breathing, and both Harry and Hermione were tensely trying not to make any unnecessary noise at all.

Then, when the weariest of sighs came from underneath Professor McGonagall's hand, Harry and Hermione simultaneously winced in their seats and instantly looked back at the professor. For a few more seconds nothing seemed to happen after that, and Harry and Hermione shared another nervous look, abruptly turning their heads again when the professor suddenly spoke up.

"Would anyone be so kind to reveal to me now that this has all been no more than a juvenile jest?" she asked without raising her head. "Please, I implore you. If you tell me now that you were merely trying to ruin my day for nothing but your own amusement, I promise I will not even subtract any points from Gryffindor. We will just forget about all of this and move on with our blissfully uninterrupted lives."

Again Harry and Hermione glanced at each other, momentarily worried more for their professor's mental health than their own looming fate.

"Are… are you serious, professor?" Harry ventured unsurely.

Immediately McGonagall raised her head in one sharp motion, her arm dropping heavily onto the tabletop.

"No, Mr. Potter, I am not," she answered cuttingly. "If I recall correctly I was tempted to believe in something solely for my own convenience on approximately three occasions over the course of my considerable lifespan, and this is not one of them."

Harry sank back into his chair and looked just a little smaller than before, while with an exasperated sigh the professor roughly grabbed her glasses and put them back onto the bridge of her nose, then readjusted them a little with some more composed movements of her fingers. Then she looked at the two young adults in front of her in turn: the boy, the girl and then the boy again. Each of them gulped under her stern gaze – and yes, Harry did in fact gulp twice.

"What in Merlin's name am I ever going to do with the two of you?" McGonagall finally asked rather rhetorically, pensively shaking her head, her expression just a little softer than a moment earlier. "Isn't there anything you can do just like everybody else?"

"But nobody is teleporting into other people's beds," Hermione said to that, her eyebrows knitted in confusion.

McGonagall turned to her within an instant. "That is exactly my point, Miss Granger," she told her brusquely, then composed herself with a sharp exhalation and continued in a steadier voice, "I think we can at the very least all agree that this has left the realms of the trivial far behind by now, and that something has to be done to get it under control as soon as possible."

When both her students merely lowered their heads abashedly and showed no intentions of adding their thoughts to that, the professor continued herself. "Now, I might not have any idea of how exactly to accomplish that without making a drug addict out of Mr. Potter," she said, "but I am intent on finding out. And sooner rather than later. Dobby?"

At that both Harry and Hermione raised their heads again, and even before they had done so the house-elf had already appeared right in front of them with the usual soft cracking noise. With his back towards them and the desk right in front of his formidable nose, Dobby looked a little lost for a moment.

"Dobby?" McGonagall asked again, a little perplexed herself.

"Yes, professor McGonagall," he squeaked, "Dobby is right down here."

"Oh," the professor said, leaning forward to have a look at him, or what little she could catch of him even from this slightly elevated perspective. "Well, would you please do me the favor to summon the professors Flitwick and Snape to the staff's conference chamber, as well as Madam Pomfrey?"

"The usual assemblage, Dobby sees," the house-elf assessed.

"Indeed," McGonagall affirmed with the tiniest of smiles playing around the corners of her lips. "You yourself would make a welcome addition once more as well."

"Dobby would be honored and will get to the task immediately," he said happily, vanishing into thin air right away.

"Well," said the professor, looking at her two uncharacteristically helpless students again, "I believe we have a meeting to attend."

"But professor," Hermione remarked, all but protesting, "classes will be beginning shortly."

"Oh, yes," McGonagall replied sarcastically, rising from her chair. "I can only imagine how hard a time our diligent students will have recovering from these unexpected free periods."

"But—"

"But me no buts, Miss Granger," the professor cut her off, already marching off towards the door. "Follow me!"

Harry and Hermione slowly turned and looked at each other, and then heaved two perfectly synchronized, long and most despondent sighs.

<3<3<3<3<3

Less than five minutes later they stepped into the conference chamber behind Professor McGonagall and found only Dobby and Professor Flitwick were already there, while Madam Pomfrey entered the room from a door on the opposite site only seconds after them. In the middle of the room stood one long rectangular table, made of darkest ebony – although it would have been more precise so say that it hovered there, for it had no legs to speak of. From one side of the room, where there were five high arching windows with ceiling-high banners of the four houses and richly ornamented sconces in between them, the grayish light of day flooded the room, the sun now hidden mostly behind clouds. Around the table stood many elegantly shaped chairs, as dark as the table – but, oddly enough, with actual legs to support them. One of them, at the far end of the table and near the wall where an old and minimally faded yet still quite colorful tapestry showed the sigil of Hogwarts above a large fireplace, had a white seat. The four stairs nearest to it were the only ones with colored seats, subdued as they were: red and yellow on one side of the table, green and blue on the other. All the remaining seats – more in number than there were teachers at Hogwarts – had black seats.

Nearest to the new arrivals sat Dobby, barely able to look out over the table with his large round eyes, and next to him stood Professor Flitwick, reaching not much higher than Dobby even while standing. With Madam Pomfrey just arriving, everyone exchanged greetings and eyed Harry and Hermione with some suspicion, or, in the case of Flitwick, with elated interest.

"So," he pleasantly said, clapping his unproportionally long-fingered hands together, "I believe we wouldn't be here if we didn't have any new developments to discuss?"

"Indeed," McGonagall confirmed with a meaningful look at Harry and Hermione, who gave the impression of two kids that were about to be reprimanded for eating too much candy. "New, for sure."

"Another teleportation?" Flitwick asked with unconcealed excitement, then turned to the two younger ones. "And you were both wearing your bracelets, I hope?"

Dutifully, if not without reluctance, both Harry and Hermione stripped their bracelets off their wrists and handed them to the professor, who took them eagerly.

"Splendid!" he said. "Splendid!"

Then he turned and stepped over to one of the chairs. "Of course I was half expecting and, to be quite frank, fully hoping for something like this, so I brought my little apparatus right with me," he said while tapping the chair with his wand, whereupon said chair shrunk to a third of its size. Then he climbed onto it with relative ease, tapped it once more and thus brought it back to its original size with himself on top. Then he put a strangely shaped, utterly unidentifiable thing on the table that was small enough to be held in the palm of his hand and casually tapped that with the tip of his wand as well.

The thing immediately and drastically grew to twice and thrice the size of Professor Flitwick himself, and then still a little more, until it looked like half a laboratory consisting of a labyrinth of brass pipes and glass phials, levers and valves in different colors, coils and inductors with copper wires going hither and thither, ridiculous amounts of fittings, bins and tanks with a pair of scales in between, and a multitude of gauges and switches with numbers, Greek letters and strange symbols on them. From a miniature brick chimney somewhere near the top of the device – if it could even be called only one device – flimsy puffs of white smoke rose into the air as if it had never ceased to do whatever exactly it was that it was doing.

In many other places this certainly might have qualified as a rather baffling sequence of events, but given this was Hogwarts no one in the room did even do so much as look twice. Few deigned to look even once, with only Dobby appearing actually impressed. But then again his eyes were virtually limited to a look of utmost astonishment regardless of circumstances.

"So, tell me more," Professor Flitwick encouraged them in good spirits, all the while pressing buttons, flipping switches and turning wheels with dextrous fingers. "Was anything different?"

"You might say that," answered McGonagall stiffly. "It appears Mr. Potter and Miss Granger deemed it proper to mix things up a little. It was all becoming so mundane so fast, after all."

Flitwick threw them a glance and raised an eyebrow, saying, "Consider me intrigued."

"I never considered you anything but, Filius," McGonagall replied and then, with a motion of her hand, gave Harry to understand that he was very much invited to speak up.

"Well, uh," he began professionally, but most of this impressive opening somehow got stuck in his throat, which he then cleared accordingly before starting anew. "Well, there really isn't much to tell. It's just that this time we, uhm, we both woke up in my bed instead of… instead of hers. Big deal, right?"

The shrug Harry tried to give was quickly stifled when he saw the reactions around the room, with Dobby's eye somehow growing even wider and Madam Pomfrey burying her face first in one and soon after both of her hands. Even Professor Flitwick looked positively dumbfounded for a moment. Then, however, his expression turned into one of purest delight.

"This is even better than I thought!" he well-nigh exclaimed and then, turning back to his instruments, once more said, "Splendid!"

Just in that moment the door through which Madam Pomfrey had entered earlier, on the windowed side of the room, swung open once more and Snape wordlessly came walking up to the gathering with a few long strides, looking just about twice as liverish as Flitwick looked breezy.

"Severus," McGonagall greeted him with a deliberate look at her watch. "How nice of you to join us."

"Better three minutes too late than an hour too soon," Snape replied sullenly. "Some of us do have other things to do besides devoting their whole attention to Potter's amorous extravaganza. But please, by all means, involve me. What did I miss?"

"We were just informed that this time our two culprits woke up in Mr. Potter's bed instead of Miss Granger's," Madam Pomfrey explained to him without so much as a pinch of humor in her voice, ever lacking the appreciation for his antics.

Snape arched an eyebrow at that. "That might actually be deemed mildly unforeseen."

"Yes, yes," Professor Flitwick agreed excitedly. "It's quite fascinating."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Filius," Snape addressed the busy Head of House Ravenclaw, "but didn't you apply what were supposed to be improvements to the magical barriers around the dormitories?"

Flitwick paused and scratched his nose, yet didn't turn away from his device. "Well," he hesitantly answered, "that wouldn't exactly be the most apt description of what I did."

More than one eyebrow around the room was raised in response to that.

"And what exactly did you do, Filius?" McGonagall inquired with a warning undercurrent in her voice.

"Well," the charms professor replied and finally turned around to face the group, looking quite ashamed, "I believe the term most commonly used in colloquial English would be… nothing, as it were."

A few chins might have dropped half an inch at that as well.

"Nothing?" Professor McGonagall asked incredulously. "What is the meaning of this?"

"The meaning of this, it seems," Snape interposed with the hint of a smile playing around one corner of his mouth, "is that the line between Ravenclaw and Slytherin can be a thin and oftentimes blurry one." Then he addressed Flitwick personally, "How unexpectedly deceptive, Filius. I applaud you."

The compliment's recipient subsequently looked even more embarrassed than before. "Deception is such a strong word," he opined somewhat meekly. "I would preferably have it referred to as a simple application of a psychological placebo."

Confidently glancing around the room the smallest professor at Hogwarts was disheartened to discover that no one besides Snape appeared to share his terminological preferences.

"I apologize," he then offered with a slight inclination of his head. "It was not my intention to insult, let alone deceive anyone. I merely thought the aforementioned placebo effect might be of use in our endeavor to better understand these strange phenomena. Having Mr. Potter and Miss Granger believe that no more teleportations could take place was an important piece to my research, as it would have considerable influence on all those factors my bracelets are made to monitor. I wanted another teleportation to happen, for we didn't have enough data to really understand any of this yet. I suppose I just forgot to involve my trusted colleagues in my little idea..."

"Of course!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed, startling nearly everyone and poor Dobby twice as much as everybody else. "Why would you give us the bracelets if you believed the barriers would finally serve to prevent any teleportation from happening? Why didn't I think of that? I should at the very least have suspected something."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall comforted her. "I believe it's safe to say your mind has been somewhat preoccupied these days."

Even though her words were genuinely meant to reassure the only student outside of Ravenclaw who would likely lose sleep over something like that, they quite to the contrary served to make her blush and fall silent instead.

"Well," Snape drawled into the awkward mishap, "I'm sure we can all find it in ourselves to respect Professor Flitwick's scientifically motivated schemes and appreciate that they might have in fact served to yield some substantial progress. Something we have hitherto been in severe lack of, I might add."

McGonagall looked first at Snape, then – and with much more scrutiny – at Flitwick. After a moment's hesitation, with Professor Flitwick looking rather uncomfortable under her stern gaze, she judged, "Fine. Then we'd better see some of that progress now."

"Of course, of course," Flitwick answered with rekindled enthusiasm. "Right away. I will proceed to read out the data from both bracelets individually now, and also observe any possible magical interconnection between the two. It should be quite enlightening."

Even while speaking he began working on his little apparatus, putting the two bracelets under separate bell jars on metal sockets, connecting cables, pulling levers. The device began buzzing and wheezing, crackling and puffing. Pipes vibrated, wires twitched and light bulbs flickered. The bell jars around the bracelets filled with dark smoke, and hundreds of flashes of lightning illuminated them in a bluish light. Miniature thunderstorms in domes of glass.

Hermione, warily watching the whole procedure, leaned towards Harry and whispered, "I can't avoid feeling like that's my diary they are dissecting in there. Or worse, my actual brain."

"Welcome to the club," Harry answered in an equally low voice. "Glad to have you onboard."

Professor Flitwick, staring through an eyepiece that observed Merlin knows what with his left eye while squinting the right one, apprised them, "This will take just a little while to start making sense."

McGonagall, acknowledging the information with a nod, turned her attention to Harry and Hermione. "Any dreams last night?"

They both shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

"None I can remember," Harry said truthfully.

A pensive hmmm came from Professor Flitwick, if in recognition of Harry's answer or in reaction to something he observed no one knew.

"Grab an eyepiece, Dobby," he then said, and the house-elf did so right away. Of course, an eyepiece that would actually fit around one of Dobby's eyes would have to be enormous, so in this case he merely came very near to it and then squinted through it as good as he could, which – to be perfectly honest – looked rather hilarious. Then Flitwick said something about patterns and Dobby mumbled something in response. The odd duo seemed altogether engaged.

Snape gave off a sigh that sounded like a meeting of equal annoyance and boredom. "It's a good thing that nobody in this school of ours would have any other plans to speak of on an average Friday morning."

"This isn't exactly an average Friday morning by any strech of the imagination," Harry muttered mostly to himself, and against his own intention caused Professor McGonagall to make an entirely different connection.

"Of course!" she practically exclaimed. "It's Miss Granger's birthday!"

"Oh, yes indeed," Snape commented flatly, then added with a smirk, "And it seems she already received her present as well. Congratulations truly are in order."

McGonagall, ignoring Snape's snide and wildly inappropriate remark, apologized to Hermione in earnest for not thinking of it any sooner and congratulated her cordially, and Madam Pomfrey followed suit while Flitwick and Dobby wished her semi-attentive Happy Birthdays without looking up from their eyepieces.

Hermione smiled awkwardly, but thanked them all despite the highly unbidden attention. "It's really not worth mentioning right now," she sheepishly mumbled, then regarded her trusted Head of House. "And this certainly isn't the way I planned to spend this day, as I'm sure you can imagine. Not that I had much of a plan, exactly..."

"Sorry about that," said Harry, giving her a timid smile with both his hands buried deep in the pockets of his pants.

Just when Hermione was about to say something in return Snape forestalled her by speaking up himself. "I cannot help but wonder if I should point out that as of today it is no longer a given that it is you alone, Potter, who has to apologize to Miss Granger."

"I'm not sure I understand," Harry replied with his eyebrows furrowed.

"Clearly," came the smug rejoinder from Snape. "I thought everyone was aware of the primary question these newest developments so overtly raise."

Apart from Flitwick and Dobby everyone in the room was giving their undivided attention to the Potions master by now, who usually tended to take a sort of distorted delight in such attention, yet in this moment merely seemed to be even more annoyed with the apparent lack of observational awareness of those around him, who seemed to be more occupied with birthdays and facile pleasantries.

"Well," he began to elaborate in his lecturing drawl and not without rolling his eyes excessively, "up until today all of us, to my personal satisfaction, presumed Potter to be the sole causal center of these life-enriching events. That presumption no longer holds up quite so easily, since it was Miss Granger who actually changed her location. So, either Mr. Potter has added the noble skill of teleporting the female populace into his sleeping area to his already impressive repertoire, supposedly to make things even more convenient for himself, or Miss Granger is the one who pulled off a teleportation of her own."

General astonishment was the prevalent facial expression going around the room after that. Hermione looked outright horrified and stared blankly into some indefinable distance, her face for once bereft of all color. Harry, who very well might have felt as much off the hook as he ever had over the course of the week, still didn't look anything but embarrassed for some reason.

Hermione opened her mouth a few times in futile attempts to speak before at last she succeeded in ejecting a few syllables. "But that's… that's impossible," she stammered.

"More impossible than remotely making someone else teleport?" Snape challenged her complacently. "That's neither possible with Apparition nor with the similar skill house-elves utilize. I am so sorry to be the one to disappoint, but right now it seems much more likely that you mirrored Potter's skills rather than him developing completely unprecedented ones himself."

"Seems like you keep joining my clubs today," Harry tried to salvage the situation, but Hermione merely switched her blank stare from that indefinable distance towards some not much more definable point in his face.

"Well," it then contemplatively came from Professor Flitwick, and everyone turned to look at the professor who was still not looking up from his eyepiece that by now was probably beginning to leave a permanent mark on his face, "I'm afraid to say that not only is Severus making perfect sense, but the data is also beginning to support his logical observation. At least to a certain degree."

"There are now degrees in this?" Madam Pomfrey asked with a touch of despair.

"With increasing clarity," Flitwick went forth to explain, "things look like the answer lies somewhere in between. And quite literally so, I might add."

The confusion in the room was nearly tangible. Not quite literally, though.

"Would you like to share anything less ambiguous with the rest of us?" Professor McGonagall asked a little impatiently. "Can you at least tell us who initiated the teleportation this time so at least we'll know what we are dealing with here?"

"Well," answered Flitwick slowly, "as it stands my answer to that would have to be… both."

No one knew what they were dealing with after that.

"Both?" McGonagall asked accordingly.

"Watch the sigma spectrum," Dobby told Professor Flitwick, the house-elf's enormous eyeball almost touching the metal eyepiece, an observation which incidentally made Hermione extremely anxious.

"Hmmm, yes," the professor mused. "Yes, indeed."

The sigma spectrum apparently had a very revealing quality about it. Harry and Hermione exchanged some wary looks, apprehensively waiting for whatever would come next, be it the tau spectrum or something else entirely.

"Still waiting for the great epiphany, Filius," Snape remarked languidly.

"This is science, Severus," Flitwick retorted, still concentrating on his work. "There is no divine epiphany, only data."

"Hey," Harry blithely tossed in, "that almost sounds like a line from the Jedi code."

A few uncomprehending eyes turned to him.

"Again, Harry," Hermione mumbled his way. "Not the right place. Also, you are such a nerd sometimes."

"Oh, like you aren't," he gave right back. "What do you call a crazy Jane Austen nerd such as yourself again?"

Hermione jutted her chin. "A scholar of world literature."

They shared a good chuckle over that, entirely oblivious to their surroundings for no more than a fleeting moment of levity. Then they became aware of the totally flummoxed and vaguely amused gazes that were collectively directed at them, with even Dobby curiously squinting at them from behind his eyepiece, and they abruptly fell quiet after awkwardly clearing their throats.

"Anyway," Professor McGonagall concluded, shaking the bemusement off of herself. "Getting back to the issue at hand, where are we with whatever spectrums you are ogling there, Filius?"

"Well, well, well," the busy professor replied pensively. "Yes, yes. Most fascinating."

Then, for the first time in many minutes, he pulled back from the eyepiece and turned to face the expectant audience. Before speaking he took a deep breath – which, deliberate or not, served to give the moment a rather dramatic quality.

"It seems the magic word here – no pun intended – is, quite simply, affinity."

Harry and Hermione eyed each other just a little warily at that, and then quickly looked away again.

"I'm sure everyone is at least to some degree familiar with the term itself," Flitwick continued, "and has maybe heard of some of its different applications, like chemical affinity, for instance. Now, there is of course also within our circles something we refer to as arcane affinity, a concept everyone here should know of as well. All things that have magical properties – which are, I might add, at their most basic level no less chemical in their nature than anything else – stand in a certain state of relation and interaction to one another, their magical energies, much like the magnetic field around each and every one of us, are in constant flux and interdependency. They mutually affect one another. There is always some kind of influence, and magical currents are all around us.

"Magic, as you all know, is also very strongly linked to our emotions. That's why for some spells it is very important for the witch or wizard to be in a specific emotional state to successfully cast the spell. An obvious example being the Unforgivable Curses, which are – legally forbidden and morally unforgivable as they additionally may be – quite impossible to cast for anyone incapable of channeling all the deepest, the fiercest and the most consuming kind of hatred, scorn and malice into one dark pit of raw magical force. So against common believe most Slytherin students would not be able to cast one of those spells on an average day of any given week. Likewise there are spells hard to accomplish when you lack the necessary empathy and compassion, like many of the more advanced healing spells our good Madam Pomfrey here is so adept at casting.

"Now, even this table here, as even a Muggle would instantly suspect once faced with its strikingly legless appearance, has magical properties – currents flowing through it. Being – at least by our admittedly wacky standards – a pretty average table, those currents are rather placid; the magical energy is at a very low level. So even while there is some interaction between my magical field and that of this table right now, those interactions are entirely negligible and will drop to zero as soon as I step away from it. That's why, for example, I would not suddenly teleport to it in the middle of the night. Which, I suppose, leads me to the heart of the matter."

Hearing that both Harry and Hermione stiffened visibly.

"Arcane affinity is a completely natural and ubiquitous thing," Flitwick assured them, quite aware of their apprehension. "It exists, in principle, between all things that possess magical properties, especially living beings. What varies greatly, of course, is the intensity of said affinity, which might, once measured, actually turn out to be zero or even less, like maybe between Professor Snape and the rest of the world," a comment that elicited no more than a wry smile from Snape, "in which case it would be more precise to speak of aversion rather than affinity. But the principle of an interdependent force, be it repellent or attractive, stays the same."

He paused and smiled warmly at Harry and Hermione.

"And, well, I guess it's safe to assume we all know the kind we are dealing with here even without all my gobbledygook."

While Professor Flitwick himself seemed to be rather pleased with his little monologue, what ensued afterwards was a contemplative silence amongst the attentive listeners. Results pending.

"So," Harry spoke up after increasingly awkward seconds of no one saying a word, "you are basically saying that the teleportation happens because Hermione and I share a more profound bond than you and that table there?"

Professor Flitwick laughed at that and clapped his comparatively large hands together. "It's not quite that simple and the degree of difference in the involved levels of affinity is quite immense," he said, "but in principle you are correct."

"But you said the teleportation was caused by the both of us, right?" Hermione queried. "How exactly does that work, especially given the distance between us at the times these incidents happened?"

"Well, you see," Flitwick set forth, "while arcane affinity is an everyday occurrence and something that you are either born with, as in the case of blood-related family, or something that can develop based on an already existent foundation that has something to do with the natural configuration of each individual's magical properties, I suppose the intensity in this specific case might be called uncommon, though probably not singular in its strength. There was, for example, surely a remarkably strong arcane affinity between Harry and his mother, which would be an important part in the explanation of his survival of the killing curse. There is almost always some considerable affinity between parents and child, siblings, and also between good friends and colleagues, people who associate with one another over extended periods of time. But such levels as I suspect between Harry and his mother or – as I can see quite clearly through this eyepiece here – between the two of you, certainly are a rare phenomenon indeed."

"So what does that mean, exactly?" Hermione asked with a hint of foreboding in her voice. "Are we… like relatives?"

"Only figuratively," answered Flitwick with a smile. "Certainly not by blood, but quite clearly… well, let's say, by magic."

Hermione looked skeptical. "That sounds an awful lot like something Professor Trelawney would drivel about."

Again Professor Flitwick laughed good-naturedly. "Well, the difference being that you can analyze the unambiguous data for yourself right here. I'm not talking about the constellation of planets during the moments of your independent births here, or some soggy tea leaves. I'm talking about actual, physical phenomena and quantifiable values. And I can tell you with confidence that the incidents of teleportation always happen when both your magical energy fields breach a certain threshold. I do not yet know what conditions it depends on who of you actually teleports, but it's clear that it only happens when both your energetic levels reach their peak – rawest and the least controlled primarily in two states of the mind, one of them being the unconscious one, the other one… well, let's skip that for the time being. What happens then can roughly be compared to a lightning: an electrostatic discharge between electrically charged areas. In this case – metaphorically speaking – from one cloud to another with some distance between them. It's not a one-sided thing. It's triggered by the interdependency of two agents. Namely… you."

Harry looked more than a little muddled when he said, "So, uh, what? One of our magical energy… field… thingies… is like, 'Hey you, how's it going? Wanna hang out?' and then the other one is like, 'Sure thing. Your place or mine?' and then a lightning strikes?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Flitwick confirmed amusedly. "All chemical reactions drive the system to a state of equilibrium in which the affinities of the reactions vanish, as Muggle chemist Ilya Prigogine put it. Of course, what we generally call arcane affinity does not simply vanish, but the strictly chemical part of it does, at least temporarily. You have to understand that prior to every teleportation both your bodily functions as well as your magical currents build up to what I can only describe as a thunderstorm. It's boisterous, tumultuous, tempestuous. And once it reaches its raging climax the teleportation happens and then – and only then – it all calms down into a state that might very well be called equilibrium. It evens out. Perhaps you can imagine the corresponding waveform."

"While that is all very interesting, Filius," Professor McGonagall interjected at that point, "and I once more commend your scientific prowess, I cannot help but wonder where in all this lies the hint of a solution, which, as I feel the need to mention, is still what we are trying to find here, as intellectually pleasing as our little symposium here may be."

"Right, right," Flitwick hastily replied. "Of course, yes. But, ah, well… that's actually the less satisfying part of it all."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that I don't really see a solution as of yet," he reluctantly admitted, readjusting the collar of his shirt a little. "While the phenomenon itself is at its core very ordinary, as I've laid out, the dramatic scale it takes and the rather drastic symptoms it shows are all but ordinary. Normally there is nothing to solve in these matters, no problem to be defined as such. A high arcane affinity is usually just beneficial to the magical capabilities of the individuals involved, who tend to amplify each other's energetic levels. So in this regard I can only imagine the impressive potential Mr. Potter and Miss Granger would have when combining their skills. Apart from that, of course, the arcane affinity can also be understood as something of an indicator for a different kind of affinity, if you will. One a bit more, say, interpersonal."

"So there is still nothing we can do?" Madam Pomfrey asked worriedly.

"Well," Flitwick replied, clearly overwhelmed by this general lack of appreciation for scientific progress amongst his peers, "I'm obviously not finished with analyzing the data. But… well, again, we are dealing with the problematic symptoms of something that to my knowledge has never been looked at as a problem itself."

"So we are basically looking for a problem to an unknown solution now," Snape remarked tonelessly, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "How refreshing."

"I don't understand!" Hermione suddenly burst out, and every head in the room abruptly swirled into her direction. "I mean, what exactly does any of this mean? Why is this happening now and why to us? What is the purpose of something this blatantly impractical? Why would our magical energy fields do that? You don't see Ron teleporting into his sister's bed, and they are actually, literally related and I'm sure they have some very fine affinity going on between them."

"Now there's a disturbing picture," Snape mumbled with his eyebrows raised.

"And do you look at Harry as someone like a brother?" Flitwick asked her casually, his expression perfectly composed.

Hermione threw a timid glance at the boy in question and he met her eyes only for the briefest fracture of a second before looking anywhere but at her.

"Well, no," she answered, somewhat vexed by the question. "Of course not. He's obviously not my brother, so why would I see him as such? I prefer to call each thing by its right name."

"I have no doubt you do," said Flitwick, then inclined his head in an apologetic gesture. "I didn't mean to pry, and quite frankly I'm relieved."

"Relieved?" Hermione asked, wrinkling her forehead in confusion. "Why would you be relieved?"

To her increasing bewilderment, the professor, still standing on his chair, blushed visibly and began to fiddle with his hands all of a sudden.

"I just meant that it would have been a little, uh, surprising," he stammered awkwardly, "and maybe a little disturbing as well. If your answer had been different, I mean."

Hermione's eyes narrowed into slits of unconcealed suspicion, while all those around them watched the exchange with both interest as well as some degree of amusement. Even Dobby looked up from the eyepiece he still had been gazing into up until now.

"I'm not sure I follow," she slowly said, and it sounded very much like an implicit demand for clarification. Somehow, the teacher-student dynamic seemed to have been inverted somewhere along the way.

"Well, this is… this is clearly a rather delicate matter," Flitwick evaded clumsily, then cleared his throat once or twice.

"If it is about me, I believe I have a right to know," Hermione unwaveringly pressed on.

"Indubitably," Flitwick agreed, no less evasively.

Hermione slowly tapped her fingers on her arm and scrutinized her Charms professor of six years intently. At last he relented, proceeding to exhale a jittery breath and flatten his shirt with unsteady hands, then clearing his throat again.

"As I… as I mentioned earlier, magic is intricately linked to our emotions," he began reluctantly. "Our research in the field has come a long way over the past few decades and today, well, analyzing a person's magical energy spectra, which my bracelets were made to record during your sleep, is a bit like reading their diary, if you will. It's all in the patterns and the waveforms, the frequencies and the amplitudes. So, uh, by looking through that eyepiece behind me, I can tell with quite a substantial degree of precision what kind of emotions were prevalent during the time you were asleep. And one should not underestimate the raw emotional flux that comes to light during a state of unconsciousness."

Hermione hesitated for a moment, biting her lower lip as she was wont to do in moments of intense contemplation. Ultimately she did not relent, and instead challenged the flustered professor even further – maybe even against her better judgment.

"So? It should be quite clear that I have a great deal of affection for Harry even without putting us under a microscope. You implicitly said as much earlier. We have been friends for six years now. I shouldn't think seeing that represented in waveforms would make it any different."

Professor Flitwick shifted on his chair, which made said chair creak a little even under his moderate weight. "Well, I really don't believe this is the best time to go into any detail on this particular matter," he said nervously, "but if you insist, then, well, let us just say that some of the patterns I observed are far too libidinous in nature to nourish the idea of the two of you feeling like siblings in any way, shape or form."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Hermione, utterly flabbergasted.

"Libidiwhatnow?" asked Harry, equaling his female counterpart in disbelief if not in eloquence.

The only person in the room who remained as pale as chalk was Snape, who merely watched the scene unfold with subtly sadistic relish. As for all the others, it was hard to say who achieved the deepest shade of red, with even Dobby's green cheeks turning a distinguishable shade of purple. He most inconspicuously pushed the eyepiece aside with the back of his hand, as if trying to appear like he had never peeked through it at all.

The altogehter old-fashioned Madam Pomfrey was hopelessly flustered, unable to decide how to move and where to look. While Professor McGonagall busied herself with cleaning her immaculate spectacles, Harry and Hermione seemed to be perfectly petrified, gaping at Professor Flitwick with their eyebrows raised to their hairlines and their unblinking eyes widened to almost perfect circles. Most embarrassed of all, however, still looked Professor Flitwick himself, presumably wishing for the ground to open up beneath him and swallow him whole – chair included, if need be.

And then someone spoke and everyone flinched, for no one knew who it was and everyone knew that it hadn't been them.

"Forgive me the cheap phrase and the nostalgic sentiment," the voice spoke calmly, thin yet clear, soft and yet pervasive, "and while I'm at it, my dramatic entrance as well, but things sure seemed simpler back in our times."

And with that, no other than Professor Dumbledore himself stood amidst them, regarding them all with warm eyes and a friendly smile, somehow managing to welcome them all in a room he had just entered last.

"Headmaster!" Professor McGonagall greeted him in sheer surprise.

"Please, Minerva," Dumbledore replied, "there is no reason for such formalities here. I have, quite truthfully, had enough of those after attending the congress in London. I am always amazed anew at just how many titles people like to make up, and no less saddened to see how much they tend to cling to them."

"I just didn't expect… I didn't mean to—"

"Of course, Minerva," he reassured her gently. "But pray tell, whatever might I have so obtrusively stumbled into here? Pardon me for saying, but the lot of you look a little like you are all at sea."

Somehow, everyone suspected the Headmaster already knew exactly what he had stepped into, but nevertheless Professor McGonagall set out to explain. "We are, once more, trying to make sense of the little conundrum Mr. Potter and Miss Granger have been delighting us with this week. There have been some new developments, but I was informed of them barely an hour ago myself and I didn't deem it appropriate to bother you with the matter again just yet."

"And here I am," said Dumbledore pleasantly. "Bothering myself, witty fool that I am. May I enquire as to what new developments you speak of?"

"Well," McGonagall answered, "this time – the fourth teleportation overall, if I am still keeping count correctly – it appears that it was Miss Granger who actually teleported, ending up in Mr. Potter's sleeping arrangements instead of the other way around, which, as you might imagine, greatly complicated the matter."

"Is that so?" Dumbledore mused, mustering Harry and Hermione – one more shamefaced than the other – over the rim of his glasses with a twinkle in his eyes. "Complicated, you say?"

"Filius explained a lot of it," McGonagall revealed. "Although I'm afraid that for all the explanations, academically engaging as they certainly were, we are none the wiser."

"Alas, wisdom is a cautious friend," said Dumbledore, turning around to have a look at the enormous apparatus behind Professor Flitwick. "I should very much like to have a look at your work, if that is alright with you, Filius."

"Certainly, certainly," Flitwick invited him with a motion of his hand, hectically adjusting the eyepiece to be a little more appropriate for someone of the size of the Headmaster.

Dumbledore gave Flitwick an grateful smile – and Dobby a playful wink – before leaning forward to look through the eyepiece. While he quietly remained like that for a while, no one else dared to speak up either. At some point he seemed to whisper something to Professor Flitwick, who then switched a few switches and pressed a button or two.

"Remarkable," the Headmaster then said a few seconds later. "Most impressive, indeed."

With that last bit of information Flitwick had provided them with in mind, Harry and Hermione each felt their cheeks heat up to feverish heights. After today, standing in the girls' dormitories in the middle of the night again, with a cat rubbing up against his bare legs, would surely seem like an average everyday kind of situation to Harry. It was, after all, truly all relative.

"This is turning out to be quite a week for great revelations and unprecedented progress," Dumbledore then said pensively, still gazing through the eyepiece. "Just Tuesday, after no more than half a day of discourse and disagreement, the congress of the European Magical Society actually ended up agreeing – if not unanimously – that magical society might just be trailing behind Muggle society in a few specific areas by about a handful of centuries. And now we are looking at all these beautiful spectra of interwoven magical energies here, at these intricate patterns and detailed waveforms, only made possible by the most sophisticated kind of magical technology, to determine that our two young students here are, in fact, quite comfortable around each other."

He leaned back from the instruments and turned around to face them with the most amused expression on his features.

"Well, we are still looking for the problem," remarked Snape sarcastically.

"Indeed, Severus," Dumbledore replied, regarding him with a knowing look. "Indeed."

Then he looked at each and every one of them, one by one, slowly and patiently, with his hands loosely folded in front of him, smiling the faintest of smiles all throughout.

"I believe we are done here," he then announced softly and to everyone's visible bafflement.

"Professor Dumbledore?" McGonagall asked in a manner as if she hadn't heard him quite right.

"You have done excellent work," said Dumbledore, and if it hadn't been for the fact that no one in the room really felt like they had accomplished anything, they might have been able to believe him. "All of you. But for now, I think we have made all the progress that is to be made with instruments and data. Besides, this is a school day, after all, and as Headmaster – tiresome as the title might sometimes be – I bear a certain responsibility to make sure our students receive the education they deserve, and in some alarming cases so desperately need. You all have classes to teach and pupils who impatiently await your appearances. Let us not make them wait any longer."

Professor McGonagall took a deep breath in obvious preparation to say something, but then she simply breathed the whole air out again in a long sigh when she saw the look that Dumbledore gave her.

"A week of great revelations, indeed," she then said, suppressing a smile. "Our Headmaster appears to know what he's doing." And then, addressing all others, she added, "Let us leave and get on with our schedule. I actually have the seventh year Slytherins coming up. Talk about desperate need for education."

Snape wrinkled his nose at that comment. "They sure lack some of your Gryffindors' innovative spirit," he said with a deprecating look at Harry and Hermione, "but to be perfectly honest, I believe I can live with that just fine."

With a curt inclination of his head at Dumbledore, he turned swiftly around and left through the same door he had entered through earlier. A thoroughly exhausted Madam Pomfrey followed him, while Professor Flitwick was still busy turning off his apparatus and reducing it to the size of his palm again.

"Say what you will," he then said joyfully, "but for me this has all been one unexpectedly interesting endeavor. I believe I might just end up writing a treatise about my observations and newest insights into the multifarious subject of arcane affinity gained through all of this. And I have the two of you to thank for it." He regarded Harry and Hermione with an appreciative look and then smiled when he noticed their apprehensive expressions. "Oh, don't worry," he affably allayed their worries, "your identities are entirely confidential and will find no mention in my work."

"I should be very interested to read that," Professor Dumbledore told him. "And I have no doubt your work will, once more, be well received in the scientific community."

With a bow Flitwick took his leave, while Professor McGonagall gave Dumbledore one last smile. Then she considered Harry and Hermione with a lingering, skeptical look as she finally left with swift and steady steps. When the two culprits of the week were about to steal away as well, Dumbledore's voice made them halt midstep.

"Harry, Hermione," he said calmly. "A minute, if you would be so kind."

Each fighting a lump that had spontaneously formed in their throats, they slowly turned around again and made a few tentative steps back towards the Headmaster, each of them feeling like they were in first year again and got caught for some adventurous mischief for the first time.

"Now, raise your heads, you two," he told them gently. "There is no reason to look so crestfallen. I would merely like very much to ask a favor of you – or two, in the case of Miss Granger."

Both of the addressed looked quizzically up at him and Dumbledore couldn't help but chuckle ever so lightly at the similarities in their doubtful expressions. He shook his head and gave off a weak, nearly inaudible sigh.

"I don't believe I have ever had quite the likes of you under my care during my many decades as both teacher and Headmaster at Hogwarts," he mused. "You are quite a pair, indeed."

Harry and Hermione each looked to exactly the side where the other was not.

"I have watched you two grow up for all these years now, witnessed two lonely kids that always felt like they were on the outside looking in finally find a home they could look out from together. And while I am very pleased that maybe I might have contributed the smallest part to that, by welcoming you into this little haven of ours, I have no doubt that the actual home you found was much less physical in nature, though certainly not any less real. I want you to know that I admire you greatly. The both of you. Rarely have I learned more from anyone who bore the title of professor than from the two of you."

Unsure of what to make of that, Harry and Hermione kept quiet, quickly running out of places to look at that did not contain any other people.

"In an attempt to make things a little less awkward for the three of us," Dumbledore continued with a lingering smile, "I will now dispense with the sentimental babble and get straight to the favors I was about to ask of you."

Even though they would have liked nothing more than to vanish into thin air right now, Harry and Hermione forced themselves to look at their Headmaster, because that was the polite thing to do. The twinkle in his eyes always made it hard to look away again once it caught you, even though it made you feel like you were translucent all of a sudden.

"The favor I would like to ask of the two of you is, quite simply, this," he said, then paused and looked each of them deep in the eye. "Do what the two of you have always done so commendably, so admirably, so naturally – so capably beyond your years. Do what you have always excelled at together."

Right now they were merely goggling at him in equal incomprehension, although they did so very much together and very naturally for sure.

He smiled the most twinkling smile at them when he said, "Communicate."

For now, that didn't exactly reduce the general incomprehension by all that much, and Harry and Hermione just shared a puzzled look that lasted long enough to make them both reconsider and quickly turn away again.

"The second favor is even simpler than that," Dumbledore let them know after waiting for their quiet exchange to pass with an amused expression. "Miss Granger," he said affectionately, "I would like you to have a most memorable and unforgettable eighteenth birthday, for which I will congratulate you no earlier than tomorrow."