Exotic Matter | Harry Potter for Grownups

Chapter Six

The contents of Minerva's stomach hit the floor with a wet, smacking sound. When she straightened up, Scrimgeour handed her a handkerchief.

"Are you all right?" he asked as he Vanished the mess at her feet.

She nodded, still dabbing at the corners of her mouth with the handkerchief. At least she'd decided on bland oatmeal for breakfast this morning, in the hope that she'd get to do another trial. The last few had been short jumps, just a day or two, but the longer the interval, the worse the nausea. She'd been gobsmacked when the head of the Time and Space Division, George Muldur, had given her leave to go back an entire month.

"You got the time recorded?" she asked.

"Right here," Rufus said, tapping his notebook with his wand.

He performed the spell to unseal the door to the jump lab, and Minerva followed him into the Time Room.

"Are you sick?" he asked as she sat down at her desk.

She quirked her mouth up at him. "No, I'm fine. It's just a little nausea. I expected it," she said as she took her lab notebook and a quill from a drawer to make her notes. She thought for a moment, then wrote herself a reminder:

Talk w/? at St M re: anti-emetic potion. Direct effect on dig. tract or systemic? If direct, won't work?

She looked up when she felt him staring at her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"You're not ... you don't think you're ..."

"What?"

"You know. In trouble."

It took her a few moments to twig to what he meant.

She laughed. "Of course not! What in the world gave you that idea?"

He looked at her for another moment, then crossed the room to fetch the tea kettle.

She turned back to her notes and murmured a thanks without looking up when he set a cup down beside her. His hands on her shoulders made her jump.

Throwing her quill down on her desk, she asked, "Rufus, what are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've asked you before not to do that."

"What?"

"Touch me like that."

He laughed, and she swivelled around in her chair to look up at him, annoyed. He wore the knowing smile that alternately infuriated and enchanted her.

The smile slipped from his face.

"You're serious?"

"Of course. Your pawing at me isn't helping us get our work done."

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then snapped it shut, his oddly yellow eyes seeming to cloud over.

"Yes. Right. Sorry, Minerva."

He took his teacup and went to his desk. Instead of drinking it or pulling out his notebook, though, he just sat, gazing across the room to the Bell Jar, where the hummingbird was making its way to the top. Minerva followed his gaze, and when the bird fell and became a chick, once again locked into its egg, a wave of melancholy passed over her.

She looked back at her notes, focussing her mind on the work at hand.

"Rufus, can you read back to me what you got from Feynman on time-reversal symmetry?"

"Come again?"

"When you saw him last week. There was something he said about the self-energy problem, but I can't remember what you told me."