Dope, Muggle (Harry Potter universe)

Chapter 7

THE WIZENGAMOT, MINISTRY OF MAGIC, LONDON

The Wizengamot had been summoned. The quickest owls in all of Her Majesty's Government had been despatched across the whole of the UK, and a full attendance had been demanded for the matter at hand.

The Chief Warlock, Percy Weasley, cleared his throat.

"Mr. Thomas, can you describe to us, in detail, the events which led you to this?" Percy asked.

"Sir. As you be knowing- ahem, I mean to say, as you know, I was assigned to catalogue the Hall of Prophecy as a part of my internship here, at the Ministry," Daniel said.

"I see there is our first curious case. Wouldn't this be more of an appropriate task for the Keeper to have performed?" Percy asked.

"Well, Sir, it would have done - only there hasn't been a Keeper of the Hall since 1995, Sir. You know, since the battle. My guessing is that the Ministry just forgot to assign one, Sir, being so busy with the War and all - and it's been vacant ever since, Sir," Daniel said, nervously.

"Indeed? That is most curious. Well, I shall have spoken with the Minister of Magic on this matter before the end of business today. It simply can't do us to be without a Keeper of the Prophecies," Percy said, more to the members of the Wizengamot than to Daniel. This was followed my a low murmur of agreement, and nodding heads around the room.

"Who was it that assigned you this task, to catalogue the Hall?" Percy asked.

"Director Delacour, Sir. She and the Director of the Department of Mysteries reckoned that it was high time we made at an Official Prophecy Audit, and get about the task of getting the Hall back up and running, Sir," Daniel said.

"Indeed, commendable thinking on their parts. But why did they assign you to the task, when there are more experienced wizards who could have done this?"

"Well, Sir, I think it was more to be as busy work for me, than anything else. I've finished the biggest tasks required for the credits of my internship, and the smaller tasks are all that remain. But since my internship has a time hack, they didn't want me to be wandering around here with nothing to do, so they gave me an assignment I'm sure they thought would take me a long time. I'd been instructed to do the cataloging the old-fashioned way, Sir, with pencil and paper. But I've grown fond of Microsoft Excel, Sir. It's very handy to have around, even if it is a muggle thing - I've been reading some of the works of a man named Faraday, and I use one of his designs to protect my muggle device from interference. It really is a rather ingenious contraption-"

"Mr. Thomas, please get to the point," Percy said.

"Right, Sir. Well, I was instructed to read the tags of the prophecies, and record the details into my notebook. So-and-so, to so-and-so, and the subject, of course. But after a very long time of typing entries onto my notebook, I got tired, and bored. And there weren't any more salient details about the subjects, either, so I decided to use magic. But I didn't know the right spell, so I just said the first thing I could think of, and voila, presto, there you go," Damien said.

Professor Filius Flitwick, a Warlkock member of the Wizengamot himself, spoke up at this.

"Damien, you just waved your wand and said something? Are you saying that you just made it up‽" Flitwick asked.

"Well, basically, Sir."

"That- that's not how magic works!"

"But, it did work, Sir," Damien said.

"That's not even close to how magic works!"

"Right Sir, I know that, Sir - but I was bored. I mean, really, really bored, Sir," Damien explained.