Two for One

Chapter 18: Research and Development

Gellert walks a familiar path through the moving halls of the research and development department underneath the Ministry.

He reaches the door to the construction team, half burnt and chipped in some places. He presses the elder wand to the flat stone reader and it sucks away just enough magic to read his signature. The door opens and Gellert strides in.

The team is standing in their places, marked with magical lights hovering over their heads, each constructing rune chains, searing it into the air with their wands. The chain circles, attaching to itself, eating the beginning with the end. It grows, forms off-shoot chains that blaze and die as they are used up.

The miniature plot of land in the middle, an exact mimicry of the open acres around Hogsmead, begins to shudder and rise, forming perfect little buildings and parks as the wards are built into the very brickwork.

The runes burn out all at once and the wizards and witches are panting as the final layer clicks into place and the spell ends. One Unspeakable who had been standing back before now, moves closer and fires a simple bombarda.

The roofs of the buildings arc up, forming a hollow shell that absorbs the magic before resettling. The Unspeakable tries more spells, slowly growing in difficulty and strength. The buildings absorb it all, or deflect it. The paths detach from the earth and form rotating belts, that take the damage the town can't absorb, and shatter.

Small puppets of magical creatures and people rush into the plot of land. Any that get through the first physical wall of defence end up being torn apart by hands that grow out of the ground, or the buildings explode with the intruders inside.

An Unspeakable turns to Gellert with a laugh. "So how about that, huh? We finally got it working."

"Not bad," Gellert muses. "But I looked over the last transcript you sent and I saw that you didn't entirely take my suggestion into account."

And without everything being incorporated, the hidden sequence is broken and Gellert no longer has full control. He can no longer command the wards, swallow buildings at will, shift entire cities with a thought. Gellert wants Eden, he wants paradise, his own heaven to turn into hell whenever he wishes.

Gellert wants to win this competition.

Another team member shrugs. "It was good in theory but not at all practical."

"How so?" Gellert asks with a tilts of his head.

"Using a plot like this is fine but in the field? The power it would take-"

"Not a problem," Gellert cuts in. "There's always going to be power, it's a never-ending resource. Bother me if you can't find the smart people to actually design upgrades. Do it again, with the full change."

Gellert flashes them a cute smile and spins on his heel, heading for the door. "I'll be in with marketing, send for me when the next run through is going to start."

Gellert ends up having enough time to check on his potion sales and get an update on the latest patent. He even does the brotherly thing and helps a notably absent Tom by retrieving the edited copy of the other boy's research paper from the material magics team.

It seems dear brother is looking into refining materials from magical creatures for faster and more stable transport. He's gone the communications and trade route. That's a good idea, but it's also playing very safe.

Gellert doesn't know how far along Tom's idea is. Obviously he's not still stuck in the funding stage like this literature review suggests. And yet, Tom doesn't have a whole team behind him either, preferring to work alone, or pick bits and pieces from different people, nothing big enough to give it away.

Gellert wants to be confident but damn it, Tom's plan is faster than Gellert's, easier to introduce, just an 'upgrade' to already existing systems. Easier to install, to sell the idea to the masses, to create. Gellert needs a whole damn town to show off his idea even if the plan is more creative and mentally, magically inclined.

Well, that's fine.

Sabotage it is.

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Tom doesn't mind wasting research time following another lead. He already has the framework set up for his rune arrays and now he's waiting on the warding core to be refined.

He even set up a nice red herring for his dear brother, talking loud enough that Gellert's little posse up in marketing overheard Tom speaking to the editing department, as if he's still just making literature reviews to try and get funding.

How droll of Gellert, aiming for warding and construction. Everyone and their House Elf plays with bricks – people would either ruin the defensive (offensive) system or they'll be too suspicious and afraid to ever back the idea.

Tom is making instantaneous, global teleportation available and able to be scaled up. Leave the common people to playing house, Tom will have a way of tracking each and every person and item passing through.

Tom will have massive arrays inked under warehouses and on public streets, between hospitals and schools and the ministry. And won't it be so much easier to just pluck away people that upset him whenever they step onto his global web? To swallow things whole, just make them disappear.

Gellert isn't going to win this, Tom will make sure of it. There's no need to rush the plan and make simple mistakes - it has to be perfect.

Instead, Tom goes straight to the hall of prophecies. He slips inside and places the holly wand on his flat palm, whispering a location spell. The shelf it points him to is empty, but there is a name tag;

Traveller Harry Corvidae (See Unspeakable 003) vs Dark Lord (?)

"That's going to be annoying," Tom tsks.

Oh, fine, Tom will help Harry with that 'greater good' Dark Lord running around. And if that question mark is for Gellert? Well maybe Tom would enjoy that even more.

If it's Tom? Tom will win.

And after it all, he can apologise, wear Harry down until the man realises that it's really not so bad, the world living under Tom's rule. Harry will understand. Tom will make him understand.

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Tom later tells Gellert about the prophecy and they both start looking up locking wards that they can use to keep Harry inside the house in the future. They can go do their Dark Lord thing and come back to Harry after.

Neither of them take it seriously because Harry would never hurt them. Harry loves far too much to ever dare.

Neither of the boys understand that sometimes love does hurt.

And the more you love, the more it hurts.