Population Boom, Hogwarts Part 6

"Let's duck in here a minute," Hermione's clone said as she opened the door to an unused classroom.

"Sure," Mist replied as he walked into the unused classroom, wondering what it used to be used for since it didn't have any specialized equipment lying around. "What's up?"

"We have questions," Hermione told him as she followed him into the classroom.

"Lots of questions and we've been waiting all day," the clone added as she walked into the classroom and closed the door behind her.

"One second," Mist replied as he pulled his extra wand out of his inventory. "Homenum Revelio," he stated as he waved his wand, checking to make sure no one was close enough to hear him.

"What was that?" Hermione's clone asked him.

"It's a spell for revealing people," Mist replied as he put his wand back in his inventory, glad that the spell came with the collection of spells the company had given him because the incantation was a bit idiotic. "Harry isn't the only wizard running around with an invisibility cloak."

Hermione shook her head. "You're getting almost as paranoid as Professor Moody."

"It's not paranoia if they're out to get you," Mist replied with a smile, knowing Moody was a lot more paranoid than he was. "So, what do you want to know?"

"Is there a limit to the number of people that you can clone?" Hermione asked, curious about his ability that broke several laws of magic as she understood them.

"Not that I know of and before you ask, the clones are permanent and can't be dispelled. They'll age and eventually die like the originals unless they use magic to cheat but they're not going to fade away or anything," Mist assured them.

"Good," Hermione's clone replied, glad that she didn't have a time limit like something out of a bad movie. "How many people do you need to copy to make our patron happy?"

"I need at least two hundred new magic users with viable bloodlines, which means that just cloning two hundred students isn't going to cut it," Mist admitted, not actually sure about the exact numbers since the voice implied that cloning people helped, but more would have to be done.

Hermione's clone shook her head. "I'm not letting you knock me up until halfway through seventh year at the earliest unless it's a matter of life and death."

"At least three quarters," Hermione told her, knowing she'd probably end up hexing some of the idiots that would give her clone grief over a teenage pregnancy. "What percentage do you think you can take care of by cloning?"

"Somewhere between a third and a half, especially if they're muggleborn," Mist replied, fairly sure taking a trip to another country and cloning people would also help boost their numbers.

Hermione shook her head. "We don't have that many muggleborns in school."

"No but there are probably dozens if we look at the last ten years of graduates and McGonagall probably has a list of the students that decided not to attend Hogwarts for one reason or another," Mist pointed out.

"We're going to need a way to generate money because the basilisk alone isn't going to cover everything needed for the new magicals," the clone pointed out.

"That's easy, just about every first year student should know the repair charm and anyone that passed their owls should be able to learn to cast the gemino charm with a bit of work, if we can find a mechanic or someone that knows about vinyl records and magic, we'd basically have a license to print money."

"License implies some measure of legality," Hermione argued.

"Potato, tomato," Mist replied cheerfully.

"Those aren't even close to the same thing," the clone complained.

"They're both in the nightshade family," Mist teased.

Hermione sighed as she realized that he was technically correct. "You know what I meant."

"I know," Mist admitted. "Mr. Weasley is probably the best of the department heads at the ministry and he doesn't have a problem bending the rules to help his friends even if he doesn’t take bribes like the rest of them, the entire government is suspect and twisted in a way that makes it hard for muggleborn to make a living, why the hell should I care what they think as long as we're not actually hurting anyone?"

"What happens if the gemino charm fails?" Hermione asked, having read about the spell in one of the seventh year books she'd flipped through at the bookstore.

"It can’t fail, at least not in the way you are thinking, the duplicate simply degrades faster than the original and if a bunch of people take a look at their records and notice they have degraded faster than expected they’ll assume it is a problem with how they were manufactured, which will be true, just not in the way they think," Mist replied with a shrug, fairly sure the problem wouldn't come to light for decades and wasn't going to expose magic even if it did come to light early. "Can you honestly say that the wizarding world laws are reasonable or designed to be fair? Sirius never got a trial, half of the Slytherins should probably be in jail for trying to curse people and the various werewolf laws are draconian at best."

"That doesn't mean we get to just ignore everything," Hermione argued.

"Why not?" Mist asked. "From what I understand, the ministry barely communicates with the prime minister or the queen and muggle laws be damned, most of the obliviators should be hunted down and killed or at least obliviated of weeks or months of their lives repeatedly then asked how they like it. The shit from the World Cup was a perfect example of their general stupidity, the ministry should have just bribed an official to let them use their own people to watch the area so the camp ranger wasn't being constantly obliviated because the wizards couldn't be bothered to behave like reasonable people."

"He probably had other duties," Hermione offered halfheartedly.

"Just because the wizarding world wants to hide the existence of magic doesn't give them the right to mess with people's minds. It sure as hell doesn't give them the right to cover up for incompetent morons that can't be bothered to learn about the rest of the world," Mist complained.

"And yet, you don't have any problems using the S.E.P. field items," the clone teased.

"That's different, you should be able to wear what you want," Mist argued, knowing he was a bit of a hypocrite about the issue. "Besides, it's more like a perception field." He sighed when Hermione's clone raised her eyebrows and gave him a look that said she didn't believe him. "Okay, fine, I just like the idea of girls walking around half naked and none of the uptight assholes being able to say shit, shoot me."

The clone giggled. "I'm not complaining about having girls walking around naked, I'm just saying that the S.E.P. fields are borderline."

"I know," Mist admitted. "I understand hiding magic to an extent or at least the locations and such things so that you could escape people wanting to control you, but that doesn't give you the right to erase people's memories. I could see the logic if a child accidentally used magic and someone noticed and it was blatant in a way you couldn't explain away, but they take things to an extreme. It's like the ban on magical carpets."

"What about it?" Hermione asked.

"There's no reason to ban flying carpets over brooms that don't actually look like normal brooms other than bribery or nepotism. You could stick a carpet on a wall or on the ground and it looks like a carpet, none of the racing brooms look like an actual broom anymore, which means they're more of a danger to the statute of secrecy than brooms are. If you're going to ban flying carpets, you might as well ban brooms."

"Don't let Harry hear you say that," the clone teased.

"Wasn't planning on it, he loves flying," Mist replied. "I'll stick to flying wandlessly, it doesn't feel like I'm trying to crush my nuts, thank you very much."

"Probably for the best," the clone agreed as she pulled the list of reasonable people that Mist should probably clone out of her bag and handed it to him. "Hermione came up with a list of people that were probably not the heir of Slytherin back in second year and we updated it at lunch to include people that you should probably clone."

Mist glanced over the list. "Is it bad that I don't recognize half of the names?"

"Not really," Hermione admitted. "Most of our classes don't include anyone from the other years so there's not a lot of reason to interact with people in other years, especially if they're in another house. I know most of them because of the library and the rest because I asked some of the older Gryffindors about the other houses."

"Makes sense," Mist replied.

"Have you figured out if you're going to duplicate the rest of the teachers?" the clone asked.

"I'll probably duplicate Flitwick and Dumbledore if I can figure out a way to do it that doesn't result in getting in a hell of a lot of trouble but I don't see a point in duplicating the rest," Mist replied, not particularly impressed by the rest of the classes at Hogwarts.

"That's it?" Hermione asked.

"Astronomy is nearly useless, Divination requires a magical talent to get more than the basics and History of Magic is a joke," Mist complained. "Besides, I can't clone ghosts."

"What's wrong with Astronomy?" Hermione asked, agreeing with him on the other two or at least the teachers.

"It should be a club or maybe a class in second year, it doesn't actually matter for common potion making or most spells, which means it's almost pointless and screws up everyone's sleep cycle. I don't particularly care about naming the stars or any of the shit we've been doing. I could look everything up on a chart if I actually cared and I wouldn't have to drag myself up to the top of a stupidly cold tower in the middle of winter like an idiot," Mist complained.

"What about Hagrid?" the clone asked, figuring he'd be a lot of help when they had to deal with the Death Eaters.

"Blast-Ended Skrewts," Mist replied dryly. “The last thing we need is Hagrid having more free time.”

"Burbage, Vector, or Sprout?" Hermione asked, admitting that Mist had a point about Hagrid, if only to herself.

"I doubt there are enough people taking Muggle Studies to fill up a classroom even if you tossed every year in the same room which means she'll be fine. "I don't really care about the so-called power of numbers or trying to predict the future with numbers."

"Trying to figure out the chances of something happening is a small part of the class," Hermione argued. "And magical numbers have an effect on a lot of things."

"Is that because of magic influencing the world or is that because the person believes that it matters and unconsciously influences events to make it true?" Mist asked.

"It's…" Hermione trailed off as she realized that he might have a point given some of the charts were a little wonky for various reasons. "Wouldn't they have noticed?"

"Chemistry, physics or actual math would be more useful but Hogwarts doesn't bother, nor does it bother with writing classes or anything most of the world considers essential skills, so no, I'm not going to assume that the Wizarding World knows anything about the scientific method or hasn't made horrible mistakes based on assumptions until I find someone that has actually run a decent amount of double blind tests. Besides, would any of the classes run out of space if they got a third larger?"

"No, the class isn't actually all that popular because of the math and the charts that you need to consult," the clone admitted. "On the other hand, she's an attractive witch of child bearing years."

"Point," Mist admitted. "I wouldn't mind copying Spout but she usually wears gloves while she's walking around which makes getting a pattern without getting noticed a lot harder and I'm not getting near the staff table while Moody and Dumbledore are there. Besides, I'm sort of curious who we'd end up with if Dumbledore was forced to hire more teachers."

"Can Hogwarts afford to hire more teachers?" the clone asked.

"In the long term? No clue but the money from the basilisk should cover more teachers and all the supplies for the next couple of years even if I go a bit crazy cloning people," Mist offered, making a note to clone Dumbledore and ask him about the school's finances since he hadn't been particularly forthcoming about how the school made money when they'd talked about harvesting the basilisk.

"Have you picked up patterns for any interesting creatures or people?" the clone asked.

"Like house elves or dragons?" Mist asked with a grin.

"Yes," the clone replied.

Mist focused on the latest pattern he'd picked up for Twist, snapped his fingers and cloned her, causing a busty and attractive teenager with pointed ears and crimson hair to appear out of thin air.

"Reporting… Did you copy Twist?" Twist asked when she realized that she was a clone.

"I needed the help and Twist is stuck in another world," Mist offered.

"Twist is awesome," the girl replied with a grin as she glanced between Hermione and her clone.

"Are you sure she's a house elf? She doesn't look like the rest of them," Hermione said as she stared at the girl that Mist had conjured.

"She looks like she just stepped out of a fantasy movie," Hermione's clone added, having a hard time keeping her gaze off the naked elf.

"Twist used a magical item that turned her into a cute girl," Twist replied as the door to the classroom opened, revealing a green haired young woman that was wearing an officially looking robe. "It's a lot easier to reach the top shelf without using magic."

"What do we have here?" Tonks asked as she glanced between the three students and the naked girl with pointed ears, causing Hermione and her clone to turn and stare at the auror.

"Hey Tonks," Mist replied with a smile, glad that he'd seen her hair change color when she was talking to Moody a couple of days ago so he knew who she was. "We're trying to figure out how much gold we'd have to bribe the minister with to get Sirius Black a trial," he replied, causing everyone other than Twist to stare at him. "What? The wizarding world is corrupt and we're not asking him to pardon him or anything morally questionable, just get him an actual trial."

Tonks shook her head. "Bribing ministry officials is illegal and it's not going to work in this case, Lucius Malfoy has been giving the minister money to make sure he won't get a trial."

"Lovely," Hermione's clone grumbled.

"How come no one has turned him in?" Hermione demanded.

Tonks sighed. "He's the minister and he can always tell people that they're campaign contributions. Not to mention most people are sort of afraid of being tossed in prison without a trial. I'm curious, what type of magical item turns a house elf into a teenage girl?"

"Magical rabbit ears," Mist replied with a smile. "I also have a bracelet that will let you permanently improve your dexterity that I'd sell for a favor."

"What type of favor?" Tonks asked warily, not expecting it to be particularly cheap if it actually did what he said it did.

"The next time Fudge visits the castle, I'd like a chance to make the attempt to convince him that giving Sirius Black a trial would result in a large contribution to his reelection fund," Mist explained as he spent the mana to summon his enchanting menu.

"That sounds suspiciously cheap, why do you need my help?" Tonks asked, knowing Fudge would jump at the chance to let Harry's brother try to bribe him.

"I don't, it would just make it easier and Sirius vouched for you when I asked," Mist replied with a shrug.

"That makes sense," Tonks admitted, feeling a bit better about the deal.

Mist touched a beaded bracelet in his pocket and dropped it into the enchanting box. "Feel free to have a curse breaker check the bracelet, just leave my name out of it, I don't want people complaining that I'm giving away family heirlooms," he told her as he assembled the runes that would let the wearer of the bracelet train to easily and permanently boost their agility to a supernatural level with a couple of days of work.

"How long would it take to see results with the bracelet?" Tonks asked thoughtfully. "Why are you acting like you're working a calculator in the air?"

"He always does that, it helps him remember things,” Clone Hermione said, covering for his rather obvious actions and trusting that the magical world was strange enough they’d buy just about any excuse.

Mist pushed the button and enchanted the bracelet then pulled it out of his enchanting menu and opened his hand, showing it to her and making it look like he'd just pulled it out of his pocket. "A couple of hours a day for a week and you'd make an olympic gymnast weep."

"Tell you what, if everything checks out, I'll give it back to you in a couple of weeks and I'll make sure Fudge meets you, how's that?" Tonks asked, unwilling to keep the bracelet for so small a favor, but not seeing a problem with using it if everything checked out. 'I wonder if this is why the Potters were exceptional duelists?'

"Deal," Mist replied as he held his hand out.

Tonks shook his hand, unintentionally giving him a pattern. "Deal."

Mist handed Tonks the bracelet, hoping the improved agility would help keep her alive.

"Why are you resorting to bribery?" Tonks asked.

"My aunt and uncle don't like magic, if Sirius clears his name, I wouldn't have to live with them anymore," Mist explained, figuring he'd be on the top of the list if they died mysteriously or rather especially if they’d died mysteriously.

"That's actually why I was looking for you," Tonks admitted.

"What?" Mist asked, not sure what she was talking about.

"Someone trapped your relatives in a painting, Dumbledore and the head of the DMLE wants to talk to you," Tonks explained.

"Huh," Mist muttered, wondering if he'd used a time turner to go back and stuff the Dursleys in a portrait or something. 'No, I'd wait for the holidays or just before summer, so that I could deal with the fallout. Which means someone else is running around with the ability to transport people into paintings.'

"Is this where we offer sympathy or congratulations?" Hermione's clone asked.

Hermione shook her head. "You should probably go. We'll help Twist with some clothes."

"Thanks." Mist conjured three silk loincloths to make sure they had enough cloth and handed them to Hermione, since he didn't want to insult Twist by handing them to her directly.

"Wandless conjuration?" Tonks asked.

"Magicians do it all the time," Mist replied as he walked out the door. "Let's go."

Tonks glanced at Twist then followed Mist out, wondering when he'd picked up a house elf.

0o0o0

Amelia Bones glanced between Harry and Mist Potter, wondering if they'd paid someone to take 'care' of the Dursleys since they didn't look particularly broken up about the fact that someone had trapped them in a painting. "Do you have any idea who might have wanted to harm your family?"

"Anyone that spent five minutes with them?" Mist asked dryly, fairly sure the list of people that actually liked the Dursleys was extremely short. "If I had to guess, I'd say Lucius Malfoy, he's had it out for us since Harry cost him his house elf at the end of my second year."

"How did you cost him a house elf?" Amelia asked.

"Harry stuck a sock in the remains of the cursed book that unleashed the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and handed it to him," Mist cut in, wanting to set the record straight.

"The same basilisk that you've been selling?" Amelia asked Dumbledore.

"Yes," Dumbledore replied with a smile on his face, wishing Mist hadn't confirmed things. "Hogwarts has the legal right to dispose of various creature parts, which includes basilisks as well as certain other five X creatures."

"You should have reported it at the time," Amelia argued.

"At the time, I didn't know the basilisk existed until after Harry had already slain it," Dumbledore admitted.

"Back to the painting, the Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries might have more luck in finding a way to free your family. The department will let you know if they ever manage to free them, I need to deal with the paperwork. I just wanted to tell you in person," Amelia told them.

"We appreciate it," Mist told her as he shook her hand, glad that the Dursleys weren't going to be a problem.

"Thank you," Harry said as he shook her hand, following his twin's example, feeling like he'd won the lotto.

Dumbledore waited for Amelia to leave via the floo then focused on Mist and Harry. "Without the blood wards, we're going to have to move you somewhere else."

"You realize there are two of us, we're always living with our blood," Mist pointed out.

Dumbledore just stared at him in disbelief for a moment before sighing. “Would you believe I had never considered that fact? I was thinking about it from a guardian standpoint when I established the wards but that will work," he mused. "I'll look into several options and get back to you."

"Here's to the Dursleys being gone." Mist turned and shook Harry's hand then did the same with Dumbledore.

Dumbledore just smiled, wishing he could kick his younger self's arse for sticking them with the Dursleys rather than placing them with people they could trust, as anywhere else would have been better.

"Let's celebrate!" Harry exclaimed as he rushed for the exit.

"Works for me," Mist agreed as he followed Harry out, using his cloning power to create a copy of Dumbledore and Amelia Bones on his way out.

"So I assume the twinning problem is still ongoing?" Amelia asked dryly as she realized she was standing in the Headmaster’s office naked.

"It does appear that way," Albus replied with amusement.

Dumbledore sighed then smiled when he realized he had someone else to share the paperwork with.

0o0o0