Catalyst

Chapter 21: Convergence

It was a rare occasion indeed which found Dumbledore looking through the nightmare of paperwork that composed Hogwarts' history. Even rarer, he was doing so voluntarily. There were mounds of receipts, endless piles of lists and reports, forgotten essays, and Merlin knew how the papers here had simply crumbled into dust decades ago from. But in this case, he was willing to bear the torment, for the endless rows of bureaucracy's litter box could help him solve the mystery that was Thenabar Jaren.

The subject of Dumbledore's search was any record of someone by the last name of "Jaren" who had gone to Hogwarts. Hopefully, that would lead Dumbledore to answers about the mystery that was Thenabar Jaren.

Eyes weary, Dumbledore scanned over the latest in a long pile of student rosters. A quick charm blew the dust of the pile, revealing this stack to be the roster of 1954. He set it down next to the others, and began reading. With the soft glow of wand light illuminating the paper, Dumbledore's eyes traveled carefully down the list. It seemed to go on and on, despite the fact that this list was no longer than any of the others. Zibitickle Ingrum. Wharnal Jabby. Faris Jaren. Humbla... wait. Dumbledore read the last name again. Jaren, right there. He at last had a name, something to search for.

"Accio Faris Jaren paperwork!" Streams of paper flew towards Dumbledore, assembling themselves into a neat stack. The Summoning charm was so versatile with the proper focus. Dumbledore picked up the first sheet and began reading through the pile. Let's see, This Faris Jaren seemed to have earned NEWTs in Arithmancy, History of Magic, and OWLs in Arithmancy, as well as all of the core classes. Looking at the results, Dumbledore winced internally. Faris Jaren hadn't done well on his OWLs overall, particularly in his Defense OWL. Despite this, all that was in the file were grades and a few old reports, as well as a detention or two. There was nothing truly notable about him, or nothing that the staff of the time had noticed. Dumbledore himself could hardly remember the boy. It seemed that if Thenabar's exceptional oddity came from his parents, it hadn't come from his father.

Dumbledore re-filed the papers with another flick of his wand. It seemed that nothing in Hogwarts would help solve the mystery of Thenabar, but now he had a name, a place to start looking. It wasn't much, but it was as good a place to start as any.

(Transition)

It was rather strange. Throughout all the Hive's existence, fighting the super colony, assimilating colony after colony, assimilating species, there had never before been consideration of a tangible...end. There were now billions of members, all working as one force, so how could such a great entity end? Of course, many things that seemed impossible were only a hair's breadth from unleashing themselves on reality, and this was no different.

The Hive had severely underestimated the power of the two-legged intruders. They had somehow adapted armor the Hive could barely even scratch, poison that slaughtered hordes of soldiers at once, and worst of all, they were very nearly as coordinated as the Hive itself. It was almost as though this was an entirely different breed of intruder, but the hive had, at great cost, confirmed that these intruders were both functionally identical in their essence to the previous intruders, and capable of hiding the secret to their greatest strengths. On top of that, the intruders had never been trying to attack them before, that much was readily apparent now. But the Hive had shown itself to be a threat, killing the members of their species, attacking the larger, better armed ones, and now the intruders had decided that enough was enough. The intruders, it seemed, didn't tolerate threats any more than the Hive did.

Nearly simultaneously, intruders arrived along the edges of the Hive, clad in bright yellow, massive canisters strapped to their backs. Rather than skulking about the edges of the webs as they had before, these interlopers attacked. They strode confidently forward, spraying poison everywhere they could, wiping out hundreds of Hive soldiers and workers with every puff of gas. Every time the Hive attempted to form a counter attack, to rush at the intruders and put an end to them, they were caught by the deadly fog. Even those few lucky enough to reach the intruders could do no harm, as they were stopped short by the nearly impenetrable yellow armor. Volleys of acid, hordes of scorpions, swarming bees, none seemed to have any effect upon the material of the intruders.