Saturday, July 5th, 2014. 11:45 AM.

  K27 Diagon Alley, Mysticked District, Borough of Islington, London, UK.

  Ginny spent the last bit of the morning, the totality of the afternoon, and a good bit of the evening in learning the basics, and some of the quirks, of operating the Portable Protean Printer. By the time she stopped for the night, she was feeling pretty comfortable with using the magimachine. Her office in the Staff area of the Second Floor was littered with paper and parchment, wadded up, torn and dog-eared. The samples were printed on, and printed over, in every color of ink imaginable, and with styles of writing from stodgy block print, to calligraphy so ornate it was positively unreadable.

  It was important to speak clearly, enunciate sharply, and not rush or slur words. There was also a learning curve for the P.P.P. While it had an amazing grasp of standard English, dialects, vernacular, and patois were sometimes beyond it. The lingo of Quidditch, and sports reporting in general, often led to work stoppages when the P.P.P. required proper spellings from the operator. It. never had to ask twice, though.

  The more she used it, the more impressed she was. Admittedly, it would take practice to reach the full potential of the magical device. She found herself disagreeing with Grizel about the in-country use of this piece of magitech. She could definitely see a future where her notepad and quill would sit in her magical storage and collect dust.

  She had asked Grizel if there was an Operator’s Manual she could use, to study up on the P.P.P. She had received a blank look. Grizel had said, “There should be, shouldn’t there? What is up with that?” After a few minutes thought, she snapped her fingers.

  “There is no real difference between the old Protean Printers and the new, save for portability and reliability. At the time of the changeover,” she had said, “...we printed one two-sided page with the few differences, and inserted it in the old manuals.”

  “Which are where?” Ginny had asked. Grizel had spread her hands.

  “Unless they’re with the old printers in storage, I got nothing.”

  Ginny had sighed. “I’ll check after work.”

  Sunday, July 6th, 2014. 12:20 AM.

  K27 Diagon Alley, Mysticked District, Borough of Islington, London, UK.

  It was now after work, Ginny decided. She pressed a touchplate on the P.P.P., and it twisted, turned, and folded itself down, ‘til it was the small-suitcase sized assemblage she had been issued. In this form it was amazingly light, and had a convenient handle. She made it smaller still with Reducio, and tucked it into her shoulder bag.

  She slid on the DOWN pole from the Second Floor all the way to Sub-Floor Four. On her drop through Ground Level, she noted that Phil Puddleduck was gone for the day, leaving the Night Clerk occupying the desk. The Front Desk was never unmanned, in case of late-breaking stories.

  Her usual twirling dismount of the pole raised a very small cloud of dust around her feet. The dust was not thick at all, but she was pretty sure this area wasn’t cleaned more than once a week. Looking around, all she saw were old desks stored edge to edge, making their own slightly irregular floor, averaging a meter above the real floor. The cavernous room was lit, but not well-lit.

  Down to Sub-Floor Five. The dust cloud was slightly larger, the area not cleaned more than every fortnight. The inventory appeared to be boxes of paper, bales of parchment, and giant rolls of newsprint. The lighting here was just barely adequate.

  Sub-Floor Six. The dust cloud puffed up to just below her knees. If this floor was cleaned more than once a month, she was a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. The inventory on this floor showed more promise, search-wise. There were informal aisles created by the old tat lining them. File cabinets with missing drawers, outdated presses, (some of which were going through their old print cycles at glacial-level speed), and things more fragmentary, all were scattered about. There were lights to be seen, but they were old, sad, and flickering.

  And, somewhere out of her line of sight, was the distinctive glow of wandlight.

  Ginny lit her own wand, and started making her way in that direction. The ‘aisles’ were not much help, having been made by dropping old equipment wherever it would fit. Once she was close enough that she wouldn’t have to yell at the top of her lungs, she called out politely, “Halloo, the witchlight!” Then she waved her wand overhead.

  “Halloo!” came the reply, a voice she recognized. “Who goes there? Is that you, Ginny?”

  “Yes, Cassie, it’s me.” A right turn out of the aisle she was on, a last dogleg around something that looked remarkably like a guillotine, and there the young ‘Head of Security’ was. He was covered in dust and cobwebs, (much like a small boy she could mention). Caspahr looked tired, but not discouraged. “Working on your assignment from Mr. Gaffe?”

  He grinned. His pince-nez slipped off to hang from their cord as his nose wrinkled, but he didn’t make a grab for them. No doubt they were purely decorative.

  “Yes, Gin, that’s the ticket. You know me, shoulder to the grindstone, nose to the wheel.”

  “Well, of course. Any progress?” she asked.

  “Somewhat,” Caspahr replied. “This is definitely the general area where the breach occurred. There are traces of magic, too faint to identify, and the dust has been disturbed, but there is nothing as helpful as a track.”

  “Ah,” Ginny said. Heart in her throat, she asked, “What was taken?”

  “No clue,” he replied, to her great relief. “I can’t even tell whether or not stuff was taken. If there’s an inventory of all this rubbish, I can’t find it. They could have taken anything within 20 yards of here, or nothing at all.” He returned his attention to the dusty floor.

  Ginny raised her wand and turned in a slow circle. Nothing at the perimeter of the small clear space looked familiar.

  When she had entered the space, she had stepped slightly to the left unconsciously. She realized now that it was probably to get away from the looming presence of the guillotine-looking thing. As she kept turning, she realized she was looking over some stacked wooden crates into the aisle she had just left. Lining that aisle, just beyond the crates, was an irregular double line of the same magical mechanism she had seen on her kitchen table this morning. Ginny looked down.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  There was a gap between two stacks of crates. Not much of one, certainly a human could not have forced their way through...

  Then she saw the foot print.

  Or, rather, the soft slipper print, in the dust between the crates. The print of a foot almost as long as a man’s, but much, much narrower. And, showing through the blur of the padding was the outline of a narrow heel and four long, long toes.

  Ginny’s thoughts spun out of control for just a moment, then locked back down. Then she did the only thing she could think to do.

  sniff... Sniff... SNIFF... WAH -TSCHYU!

  Her wandlight flickered as she cast a low-power Depulso into the space between the crates, simultaneously with the fake sneeze. VERY fake, she thought. Damn it, I’m a witch, not an actress! The sneeze raised dust from the tops of the crates while the length of her work robes blocked any view of the dust being blown around in the gap.

  “Zhu Bajie bless,” Caspahr said absently, not even looking around. “It is dusty down here, isn’t it? You should see the lower levels.”

  “Dat badt?” Ginny’s voice was muffled as she dabbed at her nose with a tissue. “And how far down does this go?”

  The security wizard scoffed. “No bloody idea. I tried to go all the way down once, when I first started here. Know my area of responsibility, and all that rot. I let go the pole on Sub-Floor Twenty-Seven and landed in dust up to my knees. Kicked up a Hel of a cloud. I was choked, blinded, smothered, and about sneezed myself to death, all at the same time. After things settled down a bit, the area looked like a dust desert, complete with dunes covering Gods know what. I came back up, and I’ve never tried to go further.”

  “Doesn’t sound safe,” Ginny observed.

  “I should bloody well think not! If someone should stir up that mess and cast Incendio? Well, the whole of Diagon Alley would probably be blown out of the atmosphere.” Caspahr grinned. “Don’t know about you, but I, for one have no desire to prove or disprove The Quibbler’s contention that there are frogs on the bloody moon!”

  Shaking his head, he went on, “I put additional security barriers on Sub-Floor Ten. That’s the lowest one that gets cleaned regularly, if you call once a bloody year regular.. The barriers stop progress down from Ten, and up from Eleven. If anyone wants to search below Ten, they are going to have to mount a fully-equipped hazardous area exploration team. I don’t want those lolly-gaggers up on Sub-Floor Three romping around down there.”

  “Totally agree,” said Ginny. “Are you worried about anything specific trying to come up?”

  “Specific? No. But when I was down on Twenty-Seven, I thought I saw movement under the dust, like something the size of, say, a badger was burrowing around.” He shrugged dismissively. “Of course, as I said, I was about half-blind.”

  He took one last look around. “I’ve seen all I need.” He motioned Ginny ahead of him to the way out. “Oh, I never asked what you were doing down here. Did you need me for something?”

  “Well, not at first. But you might be able to help me, since you’ve been wandering around down here.” They reached the larger ‘aisle’ and turned left, back toward the Poles. And away from the Protean Printers, she thought. “I’m looking for a manual on an obsolete Magimachine. Have you seen anything like that around?”

  Caspahr gazed around the cavernous space disapprovingly. “Well, I’ve noticed that, usually, when they have dropped off a bunch of...(Cassie! Language!), they leave any relevant paperwork near the Poles. I won’t dignify the practice by calling it anything so grand as a ‘system,’ but there you are.”

  Sure enough, there were three shelving units up against the front wall, loaded down with mismatched stacks of paper. Ginny looked at it in dismay.

  “Of course, they can’t be bothered to do anything as simple as labeling a shelf,” Caspahr grumbled. “Gin, I have to go. I won’t lie to your face and say something insincere like, ‘I’d love to help you.' ‘Cause I wouldn’t. But I really do have to make some progress on this break-in.”

  “Understood, Cassie,” she replied. She felt a little sorry for the gangly young man. “Caspahr, wait. When you say ‘barriers,’ what exactly are you referring to?”

  Caspahr frowned thoughtfully. “Well, the usual. Protective Spells and Enchantments, Anti-Apparition Charms, and Anti-Intruder Jinxes, much like they have on Hogwarts.”

  “All very good against human intruders. But, as you may have seen but not noted at school, not so great against magical creatures or magical peoples. Things like Pixies and Doxys, or people like goblins, or, unlikely as it may be, house elves? They don’t play by the same rules.”

  Caspahr looked intrigued. “By Jove, you’re right. I never thought of that. Talk about being blind! I should be able to work around that, though.”

  “Mind a suggestion?” Ginny asked.

  “Please,” said the security wizard.

  “Incorporate a simple motion-detecting spell into your barriers. If built into the barrier spell itself, it won’t continually alert from people doing their normal jobs. Then exempt yourself from the Anti-Apparition Charms. If the motion spell triggers, you can arrive right on top of any intruder.”

  Caspahr’s eyes widened. “Gin, you are a genius! That’s exactly what I need.”

  Ginny unnecessarily lowered her voice into a conspiratorial tone. “Plus. This is just the sort of thing to engage Gaffe’s, ah, enthusiasms. If you play him right, you just might end up with two or three staff to be on call for nights and weekends, in addition to whatever other duties you might need them for.”

  The young man stared at her in awe, handlebar moustache quivering with emotion. “Ginevra Weasley Potter, I abjectly apologize. ‘Genius’ is too pale, too weak a word to describe your magnificence.” He paused, lost for a moment in the glories of his prospects. Then his eyes focused, and his lips firmed. “You drink mead, right?” Ginny nodded. “You will be finding a full case of Knotgrass Mead in your office, posthaste!”

  Ginny laughed. “Cassie, I’m not going to try to talk you out of it, but a single bottle would be plenty. And I honestly prefer the Bungbarrel Spiced, even if it only costs half as much.”

  Caspahr sighed melodramatically, saying, “As My Lady wishes, much though it grieves me.” He then mimed wiping sweat off his forehead, and gave a subdued, “WHEW!” They both laughed.

  “Well,” he said. “I’m off!”

  “Only a little,” she replied tranquilly. “And it doesn’t really show.”

  He leapt on a Pole, and slid out of sight. Downward. Moments later, he reappeared on the UP Pole, covered in dust, sneezing and blushing, and slid out of sight again.

  The smile slid off Ginny’s face as she turned to regard the shelves. Sighing, she got to work.

  ***

  It could have been worse, she thought. She was less than halfway through the middle shelving unit when the box she was Leviosa-ing down disintegrated, scattering Protean Printer Manuals all over the floor. Several of them also lost their P.P.P. Upgrade insert sheets, which fluttered even further away. Ginny took one that still had its insert, hesitated, and took another. These went into her shoulder bag. She whirled her wand in the little tornado spell that Lily seemed to have inherited from her, and the other manuals and insert sorted themselves out into neat piles on an empty space at eye-level.

  Looking back into the darkness of Sub-Floor Six, she huffed a sigh that puffed her cheeks out for a moment. Taking her still-lit wand, she made her way back into the gloom, until she was by the obsolete Protean Printers.

  In a low voice, she said, “I don’t know if anyone can hear me, or understand me. This is for the East Side Pixies, (and doesn’t that sound like a gang name, she thought wryly). Your... clan members are at my home. (There was an almost inaudible susurrus of sound). They are helping my son get one of these Protean Printers working. I wish to make your people this offer.” Formally, she went on. “I extend to your Clan, known to me as The East Side Pixies, an invitation to my Hearth and Home, the Property known to Humankind as Number 12 Grimmauld Place, London, United Kingdom. An’ You and Yours Do No Harm To Me And Mine, You Shall be Welcome as Guests, and Considered to be as Family in Your Treatment, Your Rights and Your Responsibilities.” She grinned and finished. “So, you don’t gi’ me no pork pies, an’ I won’t grass you up to Barney Rubble. Cor Blimey!?”

  There was a moment of complete silence, then a couple of tiny metallic tings.

  Ginny looked down to find two of the smallest, cutest spanners she had ever seen in her life, crossed in a Plus Sign at the toe of one of her shoes. She grinned.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘Yes.’” she said. “Since you’re invited, you should be able to see through the protections. Knock at the little door under the left side of the stoop, and ask for Kreacher.”

  Ginny shrugged the strap of her bag up more securely on her shoulder, and turned to leave, saying, “TTFN!”