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Ficlet: Wizardry

This week's b7friday topic is advanced technology and because it's indistinguishable from magic, I couldn't resist writing a crossover with Harry Potter. It's too long for b7friday so I've posted it here. It's safe--no spoilers for B7 and only very tiny ones for The Half-Blood Prince, which you don't have to have read and in which Hermione's diary doesn't even feature.

Wizardry

"Give it back!" said Hermione furiously. "It's no use to you anyway. No spell you could ever think of would get you into it."

And indeed he couldn't have, thought Harry, at least not on him. He was horribly tempted to use the spell he'd found at the very back of the Half-Blood Prince's potions manual, and when a single tear rolled down Hermione's cheek, he decided to give it a try. "Millefuturus!"

Draco disappeared.

"Where'd he go?" asked Ron.

"Into the future, I think," said Harry, though he wasn't sure just how much time the 'mille' bit referred to.

***

Draco blinked at the large room he found himself in, and the three people who stared back at him. "Where am I?"

"More to the point, who are you?" A dark-haired man raised a sardonic eyebrow.

"Draco Malfoy." He looked around. There were hexagons everywhere: the doors, the blinking panel on a wall, the screen showing ... a moving starfield. Draco's jaw dropped.

"Singularly uninformative," said the man. "One of your relatives, Vila? He has a certain expression in common."

"Oh, very funny, Avon," said the sandy-haired one on the couch.

Just then, Hermione's diary (which, it was true, seemed to have an unbreakable spell on it), achieved its normal size in Draco's pocket to the sound of ripping cloth and fell to the floor.

Vila gave Avon a quick and furtive look. "Oh, just read about it, Cally."

If they knew about the reductio ad absurdum spell, perhaps they weren't the Muggles he'd assumed. Yes, on second thoughts, there were all those hexagons. Relieved the miniaturisation hadn't worn off a bit earlier, Draco bent to pick the diary up but Vila was too fast, and they collided.

Vila straightened, holding the diary. "What's this, then?"

"Nothing."

Vila pulled out a tiny silvery wand which he touched to the diary. His mouth didn't even move, but the book sprang open straight away to Draco's shock. Despite his harmless look, Vila had obviously mastered the art of silent spells. "Just a kid's diary." Disappointed, Vila flipped a few pages over. "What a swot, just like you probably were, Avon." He grinned at Draco. "Fancy someone called Ron, do you?"

Draco blushed bright red. "It isn't mine."

"Ah, in the same business as me then? Bit old to still be at the petty stage, aren't you?"

Crossly, Draco brandished his wand. "Accio diary!" The little book leapt from Vila's hand and flew to Draco's.

"Oh, I see we have something else in common," said Vila amiably. "I like playing with magic too." He showed Draco his empty hands, made them into fists, then opened them again and the left one held Draco's watch. "Yours, I think."

Draco was stunned. Once again, Vila hadn't spoken and he hadn't even felt the watch remove itself, or seen it fly to him.

Vila came up close to him. "I think you've got some coins in your ears. Here." Looking mock-concerned, he extracted three Hogsmeade bronzes and handed them to Draco, who clapped horrified hands over both his ears, dropping the diary. Vila laughed.

"Stop playing with him, Vila," said Avon. "We should send him back to wherever he came from."

"No!" Draco thought fast. If he stayed long enough to learn from these people, he would be more powerful than Snape or even Dumbledore.

"Come with me." Avon stood.

Desperate to stall, Draco said the first thing he could think of: that spell he'd heard some Gryffindors talking about the other day. "Levicorpus!"

Avon dangled upside-down as if held by one ankle; he crossed his arms and looked exasperated. "Not that old trick. Zen, negate the local gravity anomaly."

"Confirmed," said someone Draco couldn't see, and Avon fell to the ground and glared at Vila who was rolling on the couch laughing. "Shut up, you fool, and get that gravity generator off him."

"It might be an oldie but it's a goodie," said Vila, still grinning. He stood up and reached for Draco's wand.

Draco backed away, in no doubt that such a powerful wizard would be able to disarm him. "Cruciatus!"

"Hey!" Vila looked affronted. "That tingles!"

"It's meant to hurt. You should be in agony."

"Like I was a few hours ago when we went through that barrier thingy? Nothing a drop of adrenaline and soma can't fix." Vila raised a glass of bright green liquid. "I think I've gone right off you though."

Draco was stunned. He'd never heard of a potion that could counteract a cruciatus.

You're a very nasty boy, the woman Cally said in his head.

Legilimens and occlumens were well enough known, but a scribilimens? They were spoken of in theory but there'd never been one. Draco whimpered, stepped back again and fell over the diary.

"Oh, he's just playing with a gravity generator and pretending it's a real wand," said Vila. He waved his hands mockingly and said, "Abracadabra!" and laughed.