Hermione perfunctorily reached out and picked up the Rubik's cube portkey that Bellatrix Black had neglected to reclaim from Ginny Weasley after the assault on Malfoy Manor. The bright young muggleborn shrugged defensively when she saw Professors Dumbledore and Flitwick wince at her lack of caution. "If Ginny was able to carry it around without any trouble," Hermione said as she began to examine the cube. "I doubt there are any curses on it that would react, especially here at Hogwarts."
"Yes, well, you do seem to be all right," Flitwick observed, perched on one of the chairs in Professor Dumbledore's office. "It does seem to be exactly like the portkey you proposed making, does it not?"
Hermione nodded and pulled out her wand, wordlessly casting a charm on the portkey. "That should keep it from taking me somewhere should I accidentally say a trigger word," she said quietly. She then began twisting the cube into various designs whilst casting diagnostic spells, analyzing an apparent prototype for the selfsame charms thesis project she'd proposed to Flitwick only weeks earlier.
Next, under the watchful eyes of her professors, Hermione laid her wand atop Dumbledore's desk, and began twisting and turning the cube with both hands, methodically solving Rubik's puzzle. Finally, smirking almost imperceptibly, Hermione restored each of the cube's six sides to its baseline monochromatic state, returning the cube to the top of Dumbledore's desk before retrieving her wand. Performing a few final diagnostic charms on the cube, she allowed herself a small smile.
"Something interesting?" Dumbledore inquired, leaning forward while alternating his gaze between Hermione and the cube.
"The spellwork on the Rubik's cube is quite rough," she declared.
"We observed that," Flitwick offered quietly.
Hermione nodded. "Of course you did," she acknowledged. "However, you probably think the spellwork is rough in that it is a prototype fresh from the drawing board and that the maker was toying with it in an attempt to improve it."
She placed the portkey down on Dumbledore's desk. "I would suggest that it is rough either because someone wanted a multi-destination portkey and simplistically fashioned one from this cube or because someone had prior experience with a multi-destination Rubik's cube portkey and attempted to make a crude imitation. Seeing as that sort of portkey is not on the market, I would guess the former is the situation."
"I see," said Dumbledore, glancing at the portkey.
"What makes you so sure that it is either a simplistic solution or a crude imitation?" Flitwick asked.
Hermione gestured to the cube still sitting solved atop the desktop. "First of all, the cube has only charms that are strictly necessary for it to function. In light of modern advances in portkey arithmancy, travel via this portkey would seem clumsy and exceedingly uncomfortable. The person who made this was no arithmancer, and certainly not a professional."
"Furthermore," she continued, "in my more developed plan of the portkey, resolving the Rubik's cube to this monochromatic, solved state provides baseline, root-level access to its layered charm scheme, giving the user fairly fine control over the portkey's functions. In this portkey, the charms aren't layered atop one another but rather crammed next to each other. That suggests to me that the person who manufactured the portkey takes no joy from solving the Rubik's cube's puzzles. Thus, the person probably does not have an analytic mind. This wizard or witch was acting out of their element."
"Hence, while my proposed cube could be completely reprogrammed, this cube's functions are rigidly fixed. For example, I detected no more than a dozen programmed destinations. Similarly, the security wards I propose for my cube depend significantly upon deduction and subtlety, whereas the wards on this cube appear to be simple password wards, which function on the basis of pure brute force. The idea to make it was original, granted, but it was simplistically executed," Hermione concluded.
"Simplistic as it is," Flitwick mused, "it could still be the work of a more professional spell crafter."
"Yes," Hermione retorted, "except for my final observation. The crafter of the cube should have used a spell based on the Alternative Variances Theorem to allow the several programmed destination protocols to draw on the common portkey spell source as a matter of course."
Flitwick frowned and glanced at the cube with squinted eyes. "The cube doesn't work that way?"
Hermione shook her head. "It would appear that for a programmed destination to activate, the main charm on that destination has to overpower the other spells it would normally clash with. The maker cast the spells for the programmed destinations with a great deal more power than was used for the other spells on the portkey-apparently for this very purpose. It was clever, but clumsy.
Dumbledore seemed impressed by Hermione's inferences. "Well done, Miss Granger," he said, eyes twinkling on cue as he provided Hermione with both the acknowledgement she so often seemed to crave as well as reassurance about the relevance of her own research. "I daresay you need not fear that your own proposal has been rendered useless. I expect you will be able to create a prototype far more advanced than this one."
Smiling brightly, Hermione thanked her professors for bringing her into their council, excusing herself and standing as the rumble of the moving stone staircase, acting as the password warded door to the Headmaster's office, heralded the arrival of Alastor Moody and Lily Potter. While Mad-Eye scowled from habit, Lily nodded to first Flitwick-who had followed Hermione's cue and also stood to leave-and then to her fellow brilliant muggleborn witch. Seeing the big smile on the face of her pseudo protégé, Lily raised her eyebrows and rhetorically queried Hermione, "So I guess that means you'll be able to proceed with your charms proposal, after all?" Beaming, Hermione nodded before descending on the stone stairs with her Charms professor.
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