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"If it's just a question of energy, can't we just take a whole lot of fuel with us and make pit stops to fill up the reserves? We're not exactly lacking the stuff now that the station is up."
"That's one solution. Refueling takes time though, and we'd need to open a new window each time to go back to hyperspace, which is the most energy-intensive part of the process. We would be stuck in between systems for a while, waiting for the energy reserves to fill up again until we can make the next jump. And we're not exactly talking about a couple of times either."
"You have to remember that this ship is supposed to work with a vastly more efficient fuel." Lee added. "With it, the aliens could have crossed half the galaxy in a day without putting so much as a dent in the power reserves."
"So we can either stay here until we find a better solution or spend months trying to reach the closest system? This sucks!"
All around, grumbles of discontent rose once again at the news. People were starting to break out before Lee spoke once again, a big grin on his face.
"Oh come on, it's not that bad. Besides, there's still tons of cool stuff to see in the system. Like, Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, is one big ball of ice! Anyone else up for ice skating down a mountain?"
The golden rays of the setting sun bathed the Gryffindor common room as flames crackled in the hearth, offering them some respite against the cold of the Scottish autumn. A few of their housemates were playing or talking in hushed voices, and a group of seventh-years were practising the nonverbal transfiguration of a table into a hippopotamus with mixed results.
Harry, Ron and Hermione sat at a table so loaded with books one would think they were on the eve of their N.E.W.T.s. Very few of them were related to magic however, though some would say astrophysics and micro-engineering were magical in a way. Hermione was, of course, one of those people, seeing how she devoured the dense volumes, taking extensive notes and stopping every few minutes to cross-reference some things from the half-dozen other books she had opened around her. From time to time, she had to take out a new book from the pile next to her, earning herself some annoyed meowing from Crookshanks who had decided to sleep rolled up atop of the pile.
But far from these scientific preoccupations, Harry and Ron were hard at work over lengths of parchment covered with runes. Open next to them were two copies of the same red leather-bound tome, completely identical, down to the handwritten annotations and notes about the ship's variants of the runes added by Hermione and Angelina and the butterbeer stain on page sixty-height.
"... And with Ehwaz and Raidho it means... The horse rides the morning sun?"
"Nah, It's Mannaz, not Ehwaz. The rider went to the east."
With a groan of defeat, Harry burrowed his head in the book. They had been learning runes for a few months now, and while Ron did encounter some success, Harry was still incapable of reading a single phrase correctly.
"Why do I even have to learn this? Can't we just use Angie's dictionary once she finishes it? Or better yet, I could ask Ernie to translate for me when I need it?"
"Because you need to know how to read if you are to quickly issue orders during dangerous situations." Hermione answered without looking up from her own studies.
Harry groaned again
"But it's not like we're going to read runes forever! Terry assured me he was making good progress on his translation program."
"Err, I'm pretty sure he only told you that so you'd get off his back, mate. You've been bugging him about it for weeks."
"We're still years away from understanding enough of the computer's inner workings to even attempt modifying it like that. And that's without taking into account our other projects and the actual programming of the translation software."
Harry sighed and took his head out of the book. Despite his reticence, he understood that he had to do this, but this book was even dryer than a history of magic lecture. At least Binns talked about fun stuff sometimes, like the two-day rebellion of Grektuk Coppertongue who rebelled against the Goblin nation to establish the right to eat cakes in the underground cities.
"I'm just thankful we only have to learn these runes and not all the other alphabets they teach in the class. That would have been the death of me." Ron said as he stretched his legs.
"It wasn't that bad. Professor Babbling is a great teacher who knows how to make her subject interesting. She had us write and translate jokes to each other sometimes."
"Like Snape had us try out each other's volubility solutions that one time?"
"Maybe? But we didn't end up with a talking gerbil infestation at least."One of the rare good memories Harry had of his five years of potion classes. He'd also heard rumours that one gerbil had escaped and could still be heard pondering the mysteries of the universe in the dungeons' walls. Maybe it took a page off the Basilisk's book and made its nest in the castle's pipes?
His zoological musings were quickly interrupted by Ron however.
"Come on mate, let's get this over with."
Another week of training and monitoring the crew had come and gone and the whole thing had begun to feel like a routine for Harry. A tiring and mostly boring routing but it did have its exciting moments. Now, however, coming to break this well-oiled machine was the first weekend of October and his second lesson with Dumbledore. The headmaster seemed to have his own worries and had been a rare sight in the castle these days. His seat was empty more often than not during meals, and it had been a while since anyone had seen him walk around the halls like he loved to.
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If you want to read ahead by 10 chapters from her you can visit my Patre-on.
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