Population Boom, Hogwarts Part 16

Mist glanced up from the spell book he was reading when Hermione flopped down on his bed next to him. "What's up?"

"You're evil," Hermione complained, knowing the prank war they'd been dealing with for the last week was ultimately his fault.

"I'm aware," Mist replied as he put the bookmark in the book, deciding that he might as well take a break from trying to read the handwritten cursive in the old book, especially since the author's handwriting was barely better than Ron's chicken scratch.

"I'm serious, you shouldn't have duplicated the Weasley twins," Hermione complained.

"If it makes you feel better, I wasn't expecting the prank war to last this long," Mist offered as he turned and set the book on his nightstand, not particularly bothered by the fact that the pair of clones he'd created on the first had immediately launched a prank war to prove that they were the best pranksters at Hogwarts.

"Not really," Hermione grumbled, more than a bit tired of the random explosions of glitter that were plaguing the castle. "You should have known they were going to cause trouble."

"I figured they'd cause a couple of pranks and then things would settle down, lesson learned and mischief managed," Mist replied with a grin.

Hermione sighed as several things clicked. "Did you copy the twins because your father was complaining that you didn't do pranks?"

"I'm blaming Rose," Mist replied, thinking about his sister's prank that involved waking up to a bunch of conjured snakes on the first. "I wouldn't have known who to blame if she hadn't been annoyingly smug about it."

"You could have just pulled a normal prank," Hermione complained.

"I went with the least horrible idea I came up with," Mist assured her.

Hermione stared at Mist, not sure she believed him. "Copying the Weasley twins was the least horrible idea?"

"My other idea involved scattering a bunch of fake severed heads of various castle residents around for the holiday but I didn't want to traumatize the house elves," Mist admitted.

"Seriously?" Hermione sputtered, not sure if she was supposed to conjure a newspaper and smack him on the head or laugh at the idea of some of their more annoying classmates running through the halls screaming in terror. "Bad Mist."

"Just picture Moody's face if he opened a magically shielded cabinet and saw his own head or if we could make the head invisible to his eye," Mist suggested.

Hermione shook her head. "Are you trying to drive him further insane?"

"No, it just annoys me that his eye can see through my invisibility," Mist admitted.

"Now you're just being petty," Hermione teased.

"Yep," Mist agreed. "Joking aside, he's one of the few people that I wouldn't prank like that, he's probably found actual severed heads or at least body parts thanks to the Death Eaters."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good way to send him off the deep end," Hermione agreed, glad that Mist was actually reasonable about his pranks, if you ignored the fact that cloning people was basically a huge prank on the wizarding world.

"We could blame the twins?" Mist offered with a smirk, mostly joking.

Hermione considered the idea for a couple of seconds then shook her head. "No, I don't want them dead, I just want them to stop pranking everyone for a couple of weeks."

"I know a couple of Slytherin we could probably blame," Mist mused, thinking about some of the seventh year Slytherins he hadn't gotten around to replacing yet.

Hermione pointed her finger at Mist and used the cantrip she'd found in one of Mist's books for dealing with cats to hit him in the face with a fine mist of water. "Bad kitty!"

"I might have deserved that," Mist admitted with a smile, glad that he had someone that could keep him from going completely around the bend.

"Absolutely," Hermione agreed.

"How long have you been waiting to use that on someone?" Mist teased.

"Since I saw the spell," Hermione admitted. "You're a bad influence, you know that right?"

"Speaking of bad influences, do you still have the quest from McGonagall's evil clone to have sex with one of your teachers?" Mist teased, thinking about the twisted hat he'd given McGonagall's clone that let her give out weird magic quests.

"No, I already took care of it, Lily was very helpful," Hermione replied without missing a beat.

"What?!" Mist sputtered, surprised that she'd actually finished the quest since she'd been complaining about it.

Hermione laughed at the look on Mist's face. "I'd say sorry but I'm not, you cloned the twins. Your mother is happily married, I wouldn't do that to either of you."

"That's fair," Mist admitted, surprised that she'd managed to pull off the joke without turning beet red and giving it away. "That was cold."

"You're the one that gave Minerva the perverted teaching hat," Hermione argued.

"Don't pretend that you haven't taken advantage of the quests," Mist teased.

"It was a first edition copy of the Hobbit," Hermione argued. "Only fifteen hundred copies were sold, of course I'm going to kiss Puck in the middle of class."

Mist shook his head. "I think the impressive part is that you managed to convince everyone that you were merely demonstrating the proper way to French kiss a girl to put Seamus in his place for flirting with Lavender when she already has a boyfriend."

"It's not my fault that some of our classmates need brain transfusions," Hermione argued.

Mist laughed. "To be fair, brains require a decent amount of blood to function at full capacity and most of the boys were a bit low."

"Just because I took advantage of the hat, doesn't mean it's not twisted," Hermione argued.

"You're just annoyed because you walked in on Ron and Lavender fucking in the common room," Mist teased.

"In my favorite chair," Hermione complained.

"That's fair," Mist admitted, not pointing out that she was being a bit of a hypocrite about that particular subject given the number of times they'd had sex on the tables in the library.

"Don't give me that look, we scoured everything," Hermione argued defensively, knowing that she didn't really have a leg to stand on when it came to having sex in weird places around the castle thanks to the collar and trying to get enough mana to use the enchanting spell.

"I'm just glad that he managed to find someone that can appreciate Ron's good qualities, it saves me from giving him a shovel speech for flirting with my sisters," Mist admitted.

"Rose is head over heels for Sarah and the twins are more likely to kidnap Fred and George in a couple of years," Hermione teased.

Mist shook his head. "Better than Ron, I'd hate to have to put him in a coffin."

"You can't kill Ron just because he tries dating your sisters," Hermione told him.

"I'd never kill him for dating my sisters," Mist assured her. "I'd just bury him alive as a warning, he can't suffer if he's dead."

Hermione shook her head. "At least we have a couple of years before you have to worry about the twins."

"Hopefully," Mist agreed. "Joking aside, I'll have a chat with the clones of the twins and see if I can get them to tone things down or at least stop using glitter."

"That would be appreciated," Hermione replied with a yawn. "Can you wake me up before dinner?"

"Sure," Mist replied as he grabbed his book off the nightstand and went back to trying to decipher the author's handwriting.

0o0o0

"Welcome to detention," James Potter announced as the group of red haired troublemakers walked into his classroom. He glanced between the two sets of identical male twins then focused on the set of female twins that had pushed the prank war to an unacceptable level. "Do you know why you're here?"

"Not really, Professor McGonagall mentioned something about unacceptable pranks," Velvet Weasley admitted.

"It was hard to understand her, she gets a bit of a Scottish blur going when she's drunk," Silk Weasley complained.

"Pretty sure you mean a Scottish brogue," James corrected.

Silk shook her head. "I stand by what I said, everything sort of blurs together when she's seeing red and drunk, thus it's a Scottish blur."

"You've been pranking people for three weeks straight, you need to stop," James warned them.

"Technically speaking, you can't prove anything," Velvet argued.

"It's not about proof, you're becoming enough of a distraction that we're considering drastic measures," James warned them. "No more glitter bombs, no traps that spin people in place, no spells that make it so people can't hear staff members and absolutely no more spells that banish, swap or transfigure clothing, Goyle was stuck running around in a skirt, no one wants to see that."

"Ugh, I'm glad I missed that," Velvet admitted.

"It was bad," Fred admitted, having been in the area to check on something else when the trap had gone off on a group of Slytherins.

"No more sticking people together, you managed to traumatize a dozen first years because Crabbe had explosive diarrhea because of the candy you fed him," James complained. "It's bad enough the house elves lodged an official complaint about the extra work."

"We might have gotten a bit caught up," George admitted. "Wait a minute, I don't remember making any candy that causes diarrhea, do you?"

"Officially or unofficially?" Silk asked thoughtfully, knowing that her and Velvet weren't responsible.

"Wasn't me," George argued.

"That you know of," George's clone piped up.

George looked at his duplicate. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, hypothetically, if someone had fed him a half dozen special candies, it would be hard to track the interactions," George's clone mused.

Fred shook his head. "We tested most of the products."

"Together? With everything?" James asked, fairly sure they hadn't since that sort of testing took years or a potion master and a decent amount of time in a lab.

"You'd have to be crazy to test everything at once," Velvet argued.

"Or a kid," James pointed out. "Most of the first or second year students aren't even going to consider the problem of mixing the candies, so even if you're not responsible, you're responsible which is why you'll be writing an essay on all of the pranks that have 'mysteriously' happened over the last three weeks and grading them on creativity, danger level and potential for unintended consequences."

"Or?" Silk asked, curious what he'd come up with.

"Or, I let Lily get creative in her detentions," James replied with a smile. "But don't worry, for every acceptable essay, I'll answer a question about pranking people, marauder style."

"Deal," Fred replied without hesitation.

0o0o0

"Order up!" a female voice called out as she rang the bell, letting the waitress know that her order was ready.

Mist blinked a couple of times in confusion as he finished waking up and realized that he was in a diner filled with what looked suspiciously like aliens or demons and that the waitresses taking orders and delivering food were only wearing the old fashioned half aprons. 'Ariel's Diner, you kill it, we grill it? Isn't that supposed to be the motto for the Road Kill Cafe?'

He glanced at the window and shivered as he saw something that reminded him of various nebulas from the science fiction shows he'd watched over the years, making him wonder if he was floating in space or if it was some sort of mystical thing. "So much for quietly leaving," he muttered under his breath.

"Yeah, that would be a bad idea," a blonde woman in her late teens warned him as she sat down across from him holding a Star Trek style datapad. "Congratulations on saving the Wizarding World from being completely boring and dead, the movie deals are already pouring in," she told him cheerfully.

Mist glanced between the girl's blonde hair that had been dyed red and blue and her Blue and red harlequinesque business suit. "Fantastic, aliens or demons?"

"Personifications of chaos," the girl replied as she slid the datapad across the table so he could look at it.

"Seriously?" Mist asked, not sure if she was telling the truth or joking.

"No, it just has fantastic food and naked waitresses, the aliens are cosplayers," she replied with a grin.

"Live long and prosper," one of the 'aliens' with orange skin and glowing green eyes offered as she held her hand up in a decent Vulcan greeting, causing her purple haired friend to sigh.

"Thanks," Mist replied, doing his best not to stare at the extremely attractive cosplayer with crimson hair that was dressed in a skimpy outfit with a Star Trek badge. He glanced at the girl with grey skin and a diamond shaped amethyst stuck in the middle of her forehead that made a rather convincing Raven then focused on the datapad.

One of the waitresses walked over to Mist's table carrying a notepad. "What can I get you?"

"Klingon steak with a baked potato and a blue slushie," the woman across from him ordered.

The waitress sighed. "I'm sorry, we're fresh out, but if you kill a Klingon, we'll certainly grill it. Can I interest you in a nice dragon steak?"

"Sure," the agent replied then turned to look at Mist. "Order what you want, I'm covering it."

Mist pulled his attention off the waitress' generous assets, glad that she didn't seem offended that he was staring. "Steak and potatoes, beef, medium rare with a chocolate milkshake," he ordered, getting the feeling that being specific was probably a good thing.

"Excellent, I'll be right back with your drinks," the waitress replied as she quickly finished copying his order down.

"Thank you," Mist told her as she turned and hustled to the kitchen with a spring in her steps that showed off her behind quite nicely.

"If you're done staring at her admittedly lovely behind, take a look at the datapad," the agent teased, not particularly concerned if he 'wasted' time since she was on the clock and the waitress had a nice ass.

Mist glanced at the number of points that he had available at the top of the list or powers and services that he could purchase. "That paid better than I was expecting."

The agent grinned. "You got extra points for setting things up so that Harry will knock up Snape's daughter in a couple of years, the female goth Snape going after Lily and a bunch of points for your help with the alternate worlds. The boss also tossed in some extra points since you managed to get Neville to knock up Bellatrix and Tonks."

"Got it," Mist replied as he went back to looking through the collection of powers for something that he couldn't replicate by magic. He spent a couple of minutes skimming over the descriptions of the first couple of pages of powers that looked like they were stolen from a bunch of C or D list heroes, hoping that he could find something worth grabbing or at least flagging in case he couldn't find something else. "Why would anyone want the ability to shoot mayonnaise out of their breasts? Or cheese out of their armpits?"

"A lot of the D-list powers are sold to the Company in lots, we've got a girl that sorts everything and puts it on the catalogue," the agent explained. "Feel free to skip to the more expensive powers but the list is always changing and you can occasionally find some real gems."

"Why are some of the powers locked?" Mist asked when he noticed one of the powers on the list had a lock icon next to it.

"Some of the powers require special conditions or extra powers to use safely and Tiffany got really tired of people buying things and then complaining when they couldn't use the power or that their friend spontaneously combusted because they failed to read the disclaimer so she set things up so that you have to sign for powers that you can't personally use," the agent explained.

"Makes sense," Mist replied as he read the disclaimer on the lava armor power that required immunity to fire in order to survive using it, something that should have been blindingly obvious to anyone that looked at the disclaimer that mentioned that it didn't come with fire resistance.

"Some of the field agents aren't particularly bright," the agent admitted.

"Well adjusted people don't become adventurers," Mist replied as he continued looking through the collection of powers. "Alchemy Skill(Gamer style:empty) skill, why is this dirt cheap?"

"Most agents just get the knowledge they need downloaded into their heads, get the potions they need from competent alchemists or they buy the deluxe version that comes with new recipes when you level up and doesn't default to a level zero skill when you share it," the agent offered as the waitress walked over with their drinks.

"Are the recipes ever anything groundbreaking or useful?" Mist asked as he quickly bought the discount alchemy skill crystal, not seeing a problem with getting a discount power that he could hand out to a bunch of people without giving them all of his secrets. 'One man's treasure is another man's junk.'

"Only occasionally," she admitted as she picked up her blue slushie.

"Good enough," Mist replied as he continued looking through the list. "Huh, discount power sharing and all I have to do is spank their ass like a drum while singing, 'In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight?' That's a mighty specific activation and a paltry cost for something that can share powers, what's wrong with it?"

"The company has a dirt cheap ritual that temporarily forms a connection to an eldritch being in a far realm that shares the power, unfortunately the brief connection is usually enough to drive people a bit insane, unless you're psychic or you have solid mental defenses. We'd normally price it a lot higher but most agents already have some form of power sharing from the basic agent package so they dropped the price because Bob gets annoyed if we don't use the ritual at least a couple of times a decade."

"Got it," Mist replied as he bought the power sharing ability, not seeing a point in burning all of his points for a 'better' ability when the cheap version did everything he needed. He frowned when he saw a cheap and affordable Kryptonian package on the list next to the ability to conjure grease on your left foot. "Kryptonian powers on the cheap? Yeah, there's no way that's legit."

"It's technically legal but yeah, no," the agent replied with amusement. "The powers technically work if you're in particular versions of DC but they don't work in other dimensions and they come with a weakness to glowing space rocks and magic."

"Hard pass," Mist said as he went back to looking through the list. He frowned slightly when he saw a listing for getting turned into a wizarding world lycanthrope. "How much would a cure for lycanthropy cost?"

"Do you want that in potion, spell or pill form?" she asked with a grin, knowing the company had a large selection of ways to deal with that particular problem. "Or do you merely want the recipe to make an elixir that can cure someone? That's a lot cheaper, especially if it only works on the vision in the wizarding world."

"How much for the recipe?" Mist asked, curious if it was grabbing.

"Five credits and I'll toss in the rest of the journal," she offered.

"Five credits is basically a door prize, put it on the list," Mist told her then went back to looking at available powers. "Do you have anything that would let me fix genetic issues?"

"Generous use of remedies can help with certain health problems but that rarely helps with future problems. Normally, I'd suggest using remedies or hiring a healer but we recently made a deal with a biokinetic that is willing to do contract work in exchange for powers and a new start on another world, you can probably work out some type of deal. There's just one minor problem, you'd need to jump into a world and collect her because we're not currently allowed to rescue her because of politics."

"Let me guess, she's on a death world?" Mist asked, figuring that was the only thing that made sense.

"It's a version of Earth-Bet, so yeah," the agent replied.

"Panacea?" Mist asked, figuring that was the most likely biokinetic on Earth Bet.

"Yeah, her Skitter died and Jack set the apocalypse off early, unfortunately, we can't send a proper team to deal with Scion because a bunch of lunatic angels are planning on using the souls of the dead for a massive power boost to restart a divine war and tossed up a ward that prevents us from teleporting anyone off the world."

"Lovely," the purple haired girl muttered. "Do you have a plan to stop them?"

"I'm afraid that my hands are tied because of various ancient agreements," the agent replied as she pulled a worn looking vellum scroll out of her inventory and set it on the table. "On a completely unrelated note, do you want a spell that opens a portal to a doomed world?"

"Yes," Raven replied with a smile, figuring that would solve the problem of her upcoming sixteenth birthday nicely.

"Five dollars," the agent said as she held her hand out.

Raven pulled her wallet out of her shadow and handed the woman a five dollar bill.

"Pleasure doing business with you," the agent told Raven as she handed her the scroll, hoping the scroll would let her save Earth-Bet and the version of DC that contained her favorite diner since Raven wouldn't be there for Trigon to use as a portal.

"We're going to need to call friend Robin," Starfire told Raven.

"He'd just worry and this seems a bit too dangerous," Raven argued and swapped to Telepathy to continue the discussion with her teammate, since she didn't want to cause a panic by talking about her father.

The agent turned and focused on Mist. "Like I said, my hands are tied when it comes to saving the world but there's nothing to stop me from helping you save the girl that signed a deal with us." She pulled something that looked like the joke red buttons that people liked to push out of her inventory and set it on the table. "Don't push it yet, it only works once and it should take you and everyone around you to Panacea's current location so you can rescue her."

"Good to know," Mist replied. "Hypothetically, do you have anything that would kill a space whale?"

"Nothing that I can sell you for the points you have," the agent admitted, knowing her hands were tied since she was already pushing it by helping as much as she was.

"Figures," Mist muttered and worked on drinking his shake while he tried to figure out if he could leverage any of the powers or items he could buy or if he'd have to get creative. "Do you know if this version of Scion has dealt with magic?"

"Not enough to matter but his actual body is the size of a continent so most spells aren't going to do much," she warned him.

"That makes things easier," Mist mused as he went back to scanning the list, looking for anything that jumped out at him while he waited for his food.

0o0o0