Unusual Problems
Unusual Problems
Albus sat at his desk, thinking. His wand was pointed at a wooden cube which was his testing model. His eyebrows were drawn together in concentration when the runes on the block of wood suddenly turned a glowing red. The wood slowly started to smoke.
He lowered his wand with a frustrated sigh and leaned against the high back of the chair in his office. Resigned, he waved a hand over his test piece to dissipate the smoke.
Only recently had he found a weakness in the warding scheme of the castle. It was nothing usual otherwise it would have been discovered sooner. Unfortunately, this called for unusual means of repair as well.
Since Tom had started negotiations with the dementors - of all the horrible beings! - he began growing more restless. So he planned in advance, schemed and fortified the castle which led him to the point he was stuck on right now. For hours he has been working on an improved warding scheme, but nothing seemed to fit. Either it clashed with the other wards or it was useless in this special instance.
Maybe they should just forbid the use of magic in and around the greenhouses. Pomona would protest, of course, but in the end, he thought the safety of everyone was far more important than magically watering plants.
Listlessly Albus prodded at his cube with his wand. It floated off the desk and slowly turned in the air.
Maybe he should add some detail. A bare block of wood was not a very good approximation of the intricacies of Hogwarts. So he shaped some towers and a tree line where the forest was. Carefully avoiding the runes of his model. He made an indentation for the lake.
Should he add some water?
Maybe first the bridges and – oh dear – was the clock tower missing? What an oversight on his part, how could he forget that.
After shaping and adding tiny telescopes which were standing right behind the banister of the astronomy tower, he decided an all-wooden model of his castle would simply not do.
With a small smile on his face he started transfiguring the whole thing to stone. Made small windows of glass, the bars of metal.
He even coloured the grounds in different shades of green with some rock coloured dots. As an afterthought he added an animated miniature of the Whomping Willow.
In the great hall of his model were even floating glowing candles hovering above the four house tables and the teachers table where he would usually sit during meal times.
He swung his wand and smoke trailed the tip. In his creative boredom, he let creatures emerge from the depths of his clouds. Birds of all sizes, cats and owls were moving around the castle and its grounds.
Maybe he should make some animated miniatures of the inhabitants of the forbidden forest. He prodded dismissively at the mist that was now floating over his head to keep it from dissolving and leaned over his block now made of many different materials rather than only wood and certainly not a cube anymore.
He took two tries until he was content with his tiny acromantula horde that now spun barely visible nets in the depths of his small forest. The unicorns glowed in the setting sun that shone through the tall window in his real office and the thestrals flew small circles above the trees he created.
The smoke above his head lowered itself on his command. On a whim, he made some fish gently glide through the air in his office – the real one that is. Their pale bodies, unable to touch anything, paled and dissolved near his fireplace and reformed around his familiars perch as butterflies.
His mind returned to the warding problem. Maybe he should relocate the greenhouses? That would most likely only relocate the problem as well. It might make the flaw in his wards even more obvious. Why does this have to happen during his time as headmaster? Did he not have enough problems as it is? Fighting in two wars, now a third. When was it ever enough? Darkness seemed to rear its ugly head whenever he turned around.
While his thoughts had taken a darker turn, so had the smoke which had formed a swarm of small dementors, hovering around and hounding the portraits hanging in his office. The previous headmasters fled their portraits, swearing loudly and gesturing frantically at him with their disapproval.
Dismayed, he sighed and looked up from the heavily enchanted and transfigured model.
Without a single sound the dementors merged into a single representative of their dangerous and depressing kind, as tall as Albus, hovering in the middle of the room.
He could try to add a new ward on top of all the others to repel them.
Lost in thought, he kept staring at the dementor as it floated through his office, smoke billowing around it. Slowly the hem of its cloak lengthened, the tears in the fabric became deeper. Its arms elongated and merged with the rest of its disproportionate body that was now twice as long as it should be.
The head disappeared and its smoky body slowly turned and merged into something else.
Floating mid-air in his office was a jellyfish.
Albus stared at it, unable to move.