Yer A Witch, Gura

The next day I met up with Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore in his office. “Hey Wulfric! What’s an Atlantean? The goblins called me one when we visited Diagon yesterday. Is it because of my tail? My teeth?” I pulled up my shirt, revealing a set of gills on the sides of my torso. “My gills?” I took a lemon drop from the bowl on his desk and popped it in my mouth as I sat down in the soft chairs.

He continued scratching at a piece of paper on his desk before making a nice dot on it and putting the rather extravagant quill into its specially made inkwell-holder. It was a gift from someone several years back, apparently. Looking up, he patiently smiled at me, an amused twinkle in his eyes. “The features you described of yourself are the main features of Atlanteans.”

“Yea, but what is an Atlantean?”

“They’re a race of underwater-faring people. All of them have some sort of aquatic animal feature on them. For instance, you have a shark tail, teeth, and gills.”

“And blue hair.” I pointed at my blue-white hair. I’m thinking of growing it long to see how it’ll look, but I don’t really wanna manage it at that length. It might also slow me down while swimming, hmm.

Wulfric chuckled. “Yes, and blue hair. Atlanteans are rather isolationist, to my knowledge, keeping to the oceans and having minor contact with the wider world. Before meeting you, my only interaction with an Atlantean was their representative in the International Confederation of Wizards.”

“Huh. The more you know. Speaking of, do you know any more of Atlanteans?”

“I’m afraid not. As much as I’ve heard from their representative when chatting is that they are a monarchy, with long-lived rulers. I’ve heard rumors that the king controls the seas and creatures which live within it.”

I grimaced. Oh geez, this didn’t look good for me. Straightening it out into a smile, I gave Wulfric a grin. “Alright, if that’s all you know, thank you!” I paused in getting up to leave as another thought hit me. “Oh! Right!” I held up my wand. “Did you plan for me to go to Diagon yesterday? It sounded like the shopkeepers were expecting me. Or at least two of them.”

Wulfric grinned. “Oh, I was planning for us to go today, but am pleased that you managed to obtain your wand and a proper wardrobe. Did you get the rest of your school supplies, also?”

“No? I didn’t know I was going to school.”

Dumbledore stood up from behind his desk. “Then we can go now, if you’d like.” He pulled a letter from his wonderful eye-searing robes as I stood up to take it. “Here’s your Hogwarts admittance letter.”

Taking it from him, I looked at the address:

Ms. G. Gawr
In front of Headmaster Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Headmaster’s office
Hogwarts
Scotland
Great Britain
Earth

I tried formulating words for several seconds before a faint, “What?” managed to escape.

He peered over my head- since I was so short- to look at the address. “Ah. The addresses can go on forever if you let them. They can even pinpoint our exact location in the universe at the time of their arrival in the receiver’s hands. It’s a rather interesting bit of magic, and I’ve unfortunately never had the time to look over it myself.”

I looked up at him in disbelief. “Really?”

“Quite so. Typically, we try to keep it down to four or five lines due to the limited space on the letter itself. That, and the invitational letters don’t need to be any more accurate. Simply having four lines is good enough.”

“Huh,” I wisely commented, before carefully popping open the seal on the back. The wax stamp looked cool and I wanna keep it. Extracting the envelope’s contents, I looked over it, it was exactly how I expected it to look. The words were done in a much fancier script than Times New Roman italics and the name was my own. The book and supplies list were the same as I expected. Answering his earlier question, “Sure, I guess. We just need to get everything but clothes and my wand, then.”

“Very well! Let’s be off, then.” Strolling over to his fireplace, he took a container from a desk. “The Floo, which is what we’ll be taking, is a way to instantaneously travel from two connected fireplaces. It’s an entire network of fireplaces that can be accessed through throwing Floo powder- which is what’s in this container- into a registered fireplace while calling out the name of the location you wish to end up at.”

I nodded at his explanation, peering into the flames as if it would give away its secrets.

“Now, take a pinch of the powder, and toss it into the fire while stating loudly and clearly your destination. In this case, it is ‘The Leaky Cauldron’. The ‘The’ is important.”

I nodded. “How much is a pinch, exactly? Does it really matter how much I take?”

“Not at all- any amount of Floo powder will get you to your destination. Simply taking a smaller amount makes the Floo powder last longer between refills.”

“Ooh, that makes sense.” I took roughly a pinch of it before tossing it into the fire with an exclamation of “The Leaky Cauldron!” before stepping through.

Green fire greeted me. It was only for roughly two seconds before the exiting fireplace shot me out like a potato fired from a potato cannon. Unfortunately, it was without the resultant sound that came with it, so it just sounded like a deflating balloon caught on fire.

Or just the sound of a fireplace flaring to life, but same thing.

I’ve read a lot about how the floo just spits people out, and they go skidding across the floor, but, for whatever reason- I blame my tail, I didn’t skid across floor. I rather amazingly kept my balance and only teeter-tottered for a few seconds before landing back on my feet again. I blinked amazedly at not falling over before the fireplace flared to life again and I quickly stepped away from the landing zone.

Wulfric seamlessly stepped out of the fireplace, a smile on his face as he did so. “Ah, always an enjoyable experience, the Floo is. Much how I imagine muggle rollercoasters would feel like. Ah, there you are miss Gawr.”

“Rollercoasters are a lot

less fiery than the floo. And also have lots of twist and turns and loop-de-loops and what have you.”

“Hm, we must try one sometime. I’ve managed to ride the London Eye once before, and that was quite an enjoyable experience. Let’s get this soot off you before we head out.” Wulfric tapped his wand to my head, and I felt a quick brush of wind and the soot from the fireplace I hadn’t noticed vanished off me. Wulfric did the same to himself, and we started towards the entrance to Diagon Alley- with a few interruptions from the patrons of The Leaky Cauldron talking to Wulfric.

Thankfully, he managed to talk his way out of the conversations, and we made it to the brick wall outside. Tapping the correct sequence of bricks, and we were in. Setting off, we visited the same shops I visited last time with Harry and Hagrid and got all my supplies and books. I tried talking Wulfric into getting me a gold cauldron, but he unfortunately chuckled and said no.

Completely coincidentally, we managed to spend the most time in the bookstore, where I just so happened to buy more books than were on the required book list. It was just a slip of the hand, I swear. Wulfric simply smiled and bought me the books.

“With that sort of thirst for knowledge, you’re sure to be a shoo-in for Ravenclaw,” Wulfric had commented.

I snorted. “I’m not smart enough for that. Math is forever my mortal enemy.” I glared at nothing. “Also, I want to use this knowledge for stuff. Idk what, but it’d be pretty useful. Magic is cool!”

“‘Eye-dee-kay’?” Wulfric questioned.

“Oh, right you guys don’t know texting terminology. ‘Idk’ is shorthand for ‘I don’t know’. I’ll uh, probably accidentally do more of that.”

“Is that some sort of Atlantean figure of speech?”

“No, it’s muggle. Muggles are getting these devices called ‘cell phones’ where they have an instant messaging feature where you can talk to people all around the world!” I waved my arms in a wide circle. “Like, I could message someone from America from here, and vice versa. Of course, there’s complicated stuff with data rates and pricing and cell service, but that’s irrelevant in the face of being able to talk someone from across the globe at any time!”

“You’re quite passionate about this, aren’t you?”

I quietly laughed. “Yeah, uh, I am- was- really interested in technology. Still am, really. It’s just so cool! Though, not as advanced as I’m used to. Still, it’s really cool seeing the burgeoning internet and landline and cell phones. Maybe I could even get a Nokia…? Those things are practically indestructible.”

Wulfric raised an eyebrow but smiled. “If we can manage, we could get you one, if you’d like.”

I tapped my chin. “I don’t think they’re available, yet. I know for sure landlines are still in use, but I don’t know how prevalent cell phones are yet. Or if they’re even useable at this point.” I grimaced, remembering old videos and ads about absolutely massive phones that weren't even worth the name 'cell phone’, they were more portable landlines.

Wulfric patted my shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll have time to get something in the future.”

“Yeah, I can deal without for now. ‘Cuz I’m gonna be learning Magic! And while magic might not be as chaotic as the internet- it’ll make up for it in spades! I have so much to look into!”

“Speaking of, we have one more shop ‘to hit’, as they say, before we get our shopping done. Let us be off!” Following after the surprisingly sprightly old man, we arrived at the pet shop.

I looked up at him. “Why?”

“Every Witch or Wizard needs their own familiar!”

“Really?”

“No, but it’s always nice to have an animal companion!”

I raised a dubious eyebrow but followed him all the same. Inside, there was an assortment of all sorts of animals, ranging from small lizards, to owls- and was that a tiger in the back!?- to dogs, to cats, to everything in between. Of course, with all these animals, a cacophony of sounds rocked me back for a second. It looked so quiet outside!

Wulfric was talking- and I could somehow hear him clearly despite how much noise the animals were making around us- about how certain animals could do certain things, but I interrupted him with: “Wait, wait, wait; the supplies list says we can only bring a cat, owl, or toad to Hogwarts- what’re we doing here?”

Wulfric chuckled, “Oh that’s just a formality, and a way to keep down on chaos with having so many different species of familiars at the castle. It doesn’t matter all that much. We often make exceptions for students all the time.” He waved his hand, as if it wasn’t important.

I stared at him for a few seconds before sighing.

Wulfric smiled patiently. “Go ahead and choose your familiar, find one that just… speaks to you.”

I looked up at him suspiciously. “Is… do you mean that literally or metaphorically?”

Wulfric, with all the gall of an old man who no longer cared what people thought of him, shrugged.

I was so done with this old man. Rolling my eyes at him, I started perusing the shelves of animals on display. I considered getting a snake to fuck with Harry, but decided against it- nothing against the snakes, of course, but I just didn’t really feel like one would work with me. Owls I was pretty ambivalent towards. Like, sure they looked really beautiful and cool, but there was also Mumei to think of- if she even exists here, which I doubt- and I think she’d get really jealous. But then probably forget why she was jealous in the first place. Mumei was like that.

I paused slightly in my browsing. Why… why was I thinking about Council? Like, they don’t- or shouldn’t- exist here, since I should technically be the only one here… but… if Atlanteans are a thing here, what’s to say literal personifications of Nature, Time, Space, Chaos, and Civilization wouldn’t also be here? Not me, that’s for sure! But… at the same time… “Gah! I hate having to think through things! My mind just goes in circles and- what the fuck is that Bloop?!” I stared at the shark-thing in the aquarium. Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention- “Bubba?! What?!” the Golden Labrador barked softly, almost grinning. Bloop, the evil creature, kept smiling.

My mind was spinning. I was so dazed that I barely registered Dumbledore next to me as he said, “Found a few pets, I presume?”

I blinked out of my daze, and kickstarted my brain. “I- uh- I- uh- yea- uh- I guess?”

Dumbledore hummed and peered at the labels. “A golden Labrador and… a sea creature. Most interesting!”

I snorted. ‘Sea creature’ was one way to describe Bloop. “Yea, I’ll get these two- you’re fine with me getting two, right?”

“Of course. If anyone asks, you could say you were pet sitting for a friend.”

I chuckled nervously; he was practically on the money on that one. “Right. Let’s get them and go home!” Grabbing Bloops stupid face, I entrapped him in his containment bubble- since when could I do that?!- so his power wouldn’t leak out any more than it already had, and released Bubba from the cage, before we made our way to the desk.

The lady at the front desk was worried for Bloop being stuck in its containment bubble, like it wouldn’t get fed or anything, but I waved her off commenting that Bloop could go for thousands of years without being fed and would continue to keep smiling stupidly. But Bubba would actually need food since he’s a- relatively- regular dog. Look, spending time around an Ame changes things about animals and people. I don’t know what, but something certainly does.

After Wulfric paid for the animals and supplies for Bubba, we finally made it back to The Leaky Cauldron and had a hearty lunch, before taking the Floo back to Hogwarts. After we set Bubba and Bloop up in the room I was staying in, Dumbledore invited me back to his office to discuss a few things.

I grimaced as I thought what it might be about. I… was a bit careless about sharing things, today.

Entering his office, I sat down with a lemon drop, and we sat in silence for a few moments.

Headmaster Dumbledore spoke first, “I suppose you know what I wanted to ask you about.”

This time, I did grimace in front of him, and not from the sourness of the lemon drop. “Yeaaaah…” I mused on my words for a bit. I knew Dumbledore would be patient with me, to let me gather my thoughts. Slowly and carefully, I asked, “What do you know about time travel and dimensional travel?”

“Not much I’m afraid. Those fields of study are under the purview of the Unspeakables and not very well-explored outside of it. The most we have of time travel are Time Turners, which only allow the wearer to go back only a few hours in the past. And nothing of Dimensional travel, or, if it has happened, never noticed or spoken about.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I figured.” I took a deep, steadying breath. “Okay, so let me set a scene: The year is twenty-twenty two, the internet is a widespread phenomenon, it’s available to everyone at any time at any place- not just at home or in a library or on a computer. Phones, tablets, TVs, computers, laptops, etc.; you name it, it’s connected to the internet.”

“Books?” Dumbledore interrupted with a small twitch of his beard.

I laughed. “Books, too; though we called those eBooks- online books or electronic books. But yeah, literally the entire world can access the internet at any time. And it just so happens Japan has this popular thing called ‘Idols’ that are famous singers, dancers, and musicians, and it just so happens that these idols are super popular with a lot of people- even overseas in America or Europe.

“Now, let’s set another scene- Idols can only be enjoyed by people locally, unless live-streamed through cameras or through videos. So, it just so happens, one day, one man decides- what if I made an Idol, but online? And he did! The first one leading the charge was Ai Kizuna, a virtual idol who set the scene for many more! The next to come was Sora iforgotherlastname, who came from a new company called Cover Corp. under the branding ‘Hololive’. Hololive soon, under Yagoo- the man who created Cover Corp.- made more and more idols, people who could entertain the internet while online! Completely virtual idols! The term ‘VTuber’ was soon coined for anyone who was a virtual idol, one who streamed or made videos with an online persona. And…”

“And that’s where you come in,” Dumbledore prodded.

I nodded. “Yeah. Except, I’m very much real.” I sighed. “Kiryu Coco, a dragon-girl VTuber, led the charge to create a new branch under Cover Corp. and Hololive called Hololive EN, which was VTubers for the English-speaking crowd. And that charge came to fruition. Hololive EN Generation one, -MYTH- was created. And you, my good sir, are looking at a HoloMyth Gen one, Gawr Gura. I debuted with my friends: Amelia Watson, Ninomae Ina’nis, Calliope Mori, and Takanashi Kiara.”

Dumbledore nodded, stroking his beard. “I see. And I presume you are going to be looking for your friends?”

“Well, there’s a slight problem with that, see. I’m… not exactly Gawr Gura.” Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. “Like I said before, Hololive is just a collection of Virtual Idols- online personas dedicated to entertaining fans with lore and playing games online- video games, they’re called. And Gawr Gura is one such persona, one that shouldn’t exist as a real entity. However,” I grimaced. Ugh, I was doing that a lot.

“However?”

“However, Amelia Watson is a time-slash-dimensional traveler. She’s… she’s seen a lot. But, since the online persona Amelia Watson is a time traveler, and since I’m real, this means Hololive- or at least Cover Corp. is real. And the lore is likely real, too. And there’s a lot of lore.”

“This frightens you,” Dumbledore noted.

“It does! Since I’m real, and Atlanteans are real, that likely means that some of the lore I read in one of my many fic readings is also real and that scares me! Ina is literally a priestess for an Old One and there are literal personifications of Time, Space, Chaos, Nature, and Civilization as my Kouhai’s! I am literally the senior to literal gods!” I laughed a bit, a little hysterical. “I don’t wanna deal with end-of-the-world scenarios. Voldemort is bad enough here, I don’t want to deal with a Mumei who’s gone rouge, or Fauna dying, or even fucking corrupted Ina.” I whimpered a bit- I desperately don’t want a Myth’s Bad Ending here.

Soft birdsong filled the air- taking the edge off my panic as I slowly relaxed. Taking deep, slow breaths, I looked at Fawkes, who was singing, and gave him a shaky smile. I didn’t even know I was that close to a panic attack- or did I have one? I’m not too sure.

Albus Dumbledore hummed along to the birdsong as I calmed down. Once he noticed that I stopped shaking and wasn’t curled up into myself, he spoke. “Well, it seems most of your fears are moot points.” He held up a hand to forestall my speaking. “You are not of any Cover Corp., or Hololive agency, right now, are you?” I shook my head. “Your… Kouhai’s… are they part of Hololive at this time?” I shook my head again. “Does Cover Corp., as an agency, exist at this time?” I shook my head once again. “Is miss Ninomae a priestess at this current moment in time?” I hesitated- I didn’t think so, but… no? I shook my head. Dumbledore smiled brightly, “Then you have nothing to worry about! Other than the Atlanteans clamoring to find their lost princess, there’s nothing to worry about!”

I groaned pathetically and slumped into the armrest of the chair. “Please don’t tell me that I’m the princess to the Atlanteans?” I whined in a high voice.

“Their only princess, in fact!”

I groaned louder. “I’m not even the same person! I’ve got amnesia!”

“Specific amnesia, if what all you’ve told me is correct.”

“Yeah, but I don’t remember being the Gura of this world! I remember being some random shmuck in the twenty-first century in a slowly collapsing society! Not a princess to an isolationist aquatic species that probably think incest is wincest! Just like the wizarding world!”

Dumbledore paused. “I’ll take that blow. But even still.”

“Bleeeeh.” I stuck my tongue out childishly.

Dumbledore chuckled. “But do you not still have the muscle memory of the previous ‘owner’?”

I sighed and pulled, a trident- my trident- appeared in my hands. “Yea, but it’s just ugh. I don’t wanna deal with it for as long as possible.” Standing up, I cleared out a small area and started doing some basic Trident exercises.

Dumbledore smiled as I slowly got more and more complex in them, integrating my limited- but highly skilled- control over water into them. “Yes, but you will have to deal with them eventually. Sooner is better than later, in this instance.”

I finished the trident katas with a quick thrust in Dumbledore’s direction, spraying the collected water all over him- and specifically over him, none of the water touched his desk at all. Which really showed how skilled I was at this. Dumbledore, of course, took this all in stride- acting as if being soaking wet was perfectly normal. He, annoyingly, didn’t stop smiling at me. Sitting back down with a ‘whump’, I released my hold on my trident and it disappeared to- wherever. Crossing my arms, I pouted fiercely.

He chuckled happily, “Now that you’ve calmed down, I’d like to talk more of the future you came from. It sounds like the most interesting place.”

Sighing, I uncrossed my arms to push myself up further in the chair to be able to curl up into a ball. Using my arms as a loose lock to keep my legs from escaping, I started talking, “Well, there isn’t much to say. By the time I’d left, the world was on the brink of a socio-economic collapse. A plague that could’ve been easily prevented killed off a non-insignificant portion of the population, and the after-effects of that still linger two years later- despite people saying it’s all fine, it’s not really. The economic state of the world- America, mostly- was so bad that prices were- are- inflated artificially and you couldn’t even buy a house on a minimum wage salary, much less an apartment without having to share with at least five other minimum wage workers. And maybe not even then, it was so bad. The Government, corrupt as it was ineffective. So much bad stuff was going on back then, I can’t even list them all, and not just because I don’t know about it.

“But it wasn’t all that bad. The internet, as I told you before, was integrated into our very lives. Various social media outlets we could access with the tap of our fingers, reading the news as it came online, watching videos or movies as soon as they came out, it was all there, at our fingertips- a single click away. And while the internet was bad, it held a lot of good things. VTubers, Youtubers, Twitch streamers, memes, and so much more was out there- entertainment for the masses, to keep their minds off the dying world and to poke fun at the world as its pillars came crumbling down around us.

“There’s one last thing, though. Our world didn’t have magic.” Immediately, Dumbledore looked concerned and interested. I nodded. “Yeah. Magic was a thing of fiction, not fact. Much like how the muggle world here acts. However, I was a muggle in that world and so even if there was magic, I doubted I would’ve seen it. But, to my best knowledge, magic never existed in that world. And you want to know how I even know about magic- how I know so much about the wizarding world?” Dumbledore inclined his head. “This world, this place, this entire plane of existence you have here- was fiction.”

I paused to let that hang in the air. Dumbledore’s gaze increased in intensity, a tangible weight lingered in the air, making it feel thick and heavy- hard to breathe. I felt something ‘click’ within me, and a tangible energy- magic- was released from me, straining against Dumbledore’s own. No, not straining- it was more, overpowering(?) Dumbledore’s own. If Dumbledore was surprised, he certainly didn’t show it on his face. But I certainly was.

Speaking with a voice that wasn’t my own, “I am nine-thousand years old, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. I have seen and done more than you have ever done in your life. You are but a child to me. Cease your childish display of power. You have nothing on the Princess of the Atlanteans.” Blinking rapidly, I fell back into my seat- power already fading, as well as the weight in the air.

“I apologize, your highness. I did not wish to release my magic like that.”

“I- it’s fine?” I rubbed my head, feeling a small headache. “I’m not too sure what happened, honestly.” I shook my head, grimacing a bit. “But please don’t call me ‘your highness’ or whatever- I don’t remember being royalty. Anyway. Like I was saying. This world was fiction to me. Was. Fiction. It is no longer. Since, well, I’m here, and you’re here, and Harry’s here, and everyone else. You’re all fleshy piles of meat strung up on bones being piloted by wiggly tubes of grey brain matter.”

Dumbledore laughed. “That’s one way to describe humans.”

I grinned. “Yeah. Anyway. There was this whole book series created by a woman with too much hate in her heart, too much greed- always taking and angering. It was sad, really, to see that this book series that so many people around the world loved to be corrupted by a woman without good intentions. So, the people rallied- I’m talking about this like it was some revolution or something,” I laughed. “It’s so very much not. Fanfiction is where I’m trying to go with this. Fanfictions are books whose writers play around with pre-created worlds. Like, uhh, name a book series!”

“A book series that several students have recommended to me over the years is The Lord of the Rings.”

I grinned. “Ooh, a good one. Lots of lore. With fanfiction, writers can take the world and its lore, and change it to suit their needs. Aragorn, the last king of whatever or something- some sort of ranger dude- could be a girl, and his lover, a guy- they could be anything! Fanfiction writers change their world. Frodo, the protagonist of the story, could be gay, he could be straight, he could be a girl; so many things! Legolas and Gimli, an elf and a dwarf- they could be enemies to lovers! A trope as old as time.” I nodded, as if all was right with the world. “And the same thing happened to the book series you were a part of- fanfictions that I read, devoured. So many stories created by people with too much imagination, too many ideas, and had to let it all out. In many of the stories, Harry could’ve been a girl, with a name like Rose, Harriet, Hydrangea- my personal favorite- or some scion of an Ancient and Noble house whose name is Hadrian. So many and so much more! Fanfiction also said that you and Gellert Grindelwald were gay lovers- is this true?”

Dumbledore sighed. “That, I’m afraid, is only somewhat true. We did indeed date when we were younger, but an event happened, and we broke up. He left and became what the world knows him, and I became a schoolteacher.”

I nodded. “Ariana’s death, right?” I got up and hugged Dumbledore. “Even fanfiction and the source material- canon- isn’t clear on who got her killed. No brother should see their little sister die in front of them, not like that.” Dumbledore hugged me back, if a little unsteadily. Eventually, he released the hug, and I sat back down in my seat.

“Going back to the topic, fanfiction is what really drove people to the series- it was, is, one of the more popular book series for fanfiction just because of how vastly unexplored the wizarding world is in the series. So much stuff, and not enough known! But, trying to get back to my point…” I sighed. “Magic is versatile. Magic is wonderful. Magic solves so many problems. Magic was fiction. Magic is now real to me. And I see a lot of promise and uses for it in so many areas! Especially in the muggle world!”

Standing from my seat, I pulled up some water and started showing scenes. “Magic! It can be used to eliminate wastes!” Scene of a factory plant. “Factory plants output a lot of waste into the environment that are super harmful to it! If we used magic on a massive scale, we could either transmute that waste into something beneficial to the environment, or even just straight up vanish it! I know for sure alchemy exists- Nicholas Flamel is the more famous example- and transmutation can’t be that hard if you use runes to do it! Heck, even with what I know of stuff, you have a vanishing spell- Evanesco or something like that- and on a massive scale, that’s really useful!” The scene changed to a warehouse. “Storage warehouses could be even bigger on the inside! They could store a lot more items in massive quantities than ever before! You guys do it all the time with your houses and your own storage rooms, yea? Doing this cuts down on a lot of problems with storage spaces for products and equipment!” Scene change, forest. “I’m not too sure on this one, but I know you have a duplication spell for sure, so if you had a permanent one, then forests, like the Amazon Rainforest, wouldn’t have to be harvested for wood and woodchips, displacing animals and natural inhabitants. Heck, with magic you could probably speed up the growth of plants and have trees ready to harvest whenever!” Scene change, courtroom. “The justice system. Ya’ll got a substance called veritaserum that makes people speak the truth. This could be very beneficial in court cases where the truth is muddled, and it seems like everyone is lying. Even your pensieves are useful! Memories of the people, unmodified, could help with finding people, who did something, and if they had gotten the wrong person.”

I slumped back down into the chair, relaxing the water and started playing with it, making it take weird shapes. “There’s just so much you can do with magic, and it’s so depressing that you just don’t. Out of what? Fear? Rejection? Hatred?” I laughed bitterly. “Those are part of the human condition. Humans fear what they don’t know. People still believe the earth is flat thirty years in the future, still believe that nobody has gone to the moon, still believe this and that. They hate the unknown. They don’t like knowing, because to them, not knowing something is a sign of weakness, a sign that they’re out of their depth. So, they bluster, make things up, lie about what they believe.” I looked up at Dumbledore. “But beyond them, beyond the people who fear, who hate, who lie, who cheat, who steal, who do morally wrong, beyond them, there is hope. There is the hope of people who wonder. The wonder of people who love. The love of the unknown. The love of the mystical. The wish of those who want to see things get better. Yes, in the beginning, people will hate, people will anger, people with fear, but those things are temporary. If people keep going on, if the Wizarding World reveals itself to the public at large, in the end, the people who see good will win out over those who see bad. Hope is a human condition. It is the last thing in Pandora’s box, and with Pandora’s box, it will always win out over all others. Hope is what brings people together, what brings people to start doing good, in hope for a brighter future. So, let’s hope together, yea? Hope for a world whose fear of the unknown is unfounded, hope for a world where magic and non-magic can coexist, where people aren’t divided by a thin, weakening, barrier. Where mystical creatures of myth can wander free once more. Where we can build a brighter future for the generations to come, to live in, to hope in, to believe in, to care for.”

Dumbledore was silent for a while. “And how do we start?”

I grinned, all teeth. “With Pandora’s Box.”