For those at the forefront of discovery, it was known that often one had to disregard his or her morals for the greater good. Wealth. Friendship. Family. These were meaningless foibles, only serving as distractions. Excess wealth beyond the necessities of life did not bring about results; friends only served to bring chaos in an otherwise immaculately ordered life. And family? The bickering of relatives not concerning oneself was not even worth listening to, let alone intervening in.

For Amanda Flynn, these thoughts had served her well for years. Her brothers and sisters were dull, preferring to engage in fickle activities such as sports and music to occupy their days and evenings. She preferred to read and ponder about how things worked. She remembered well the day that her eldest brother purchased a car, a simple four-door sedan; while the others were marvelling at the comfortable seats and the ample baggage space, she spent more of her time looking at what was under the hood and wondering how it worked. They poked fun at her for weeks after that, thinking that she was strange for being fascinated by gears and metal.

Strange. It was an appropriate enough word to describe her, she supposed. But the opinions of others did not matter to her. What did matter was power; and what better power was there than knowledge?

Combustion engines were interesting enough to look at, to dismantle and examine. So were most of the other moving parts that worked. But as she pondered more about the workings of machines, she found herself staring at her hand after a while. Closing and opening it, turning it around, and experimentally prodding at the skin, marvelling at how flexible yet tough it was. It was at that point that inspiration struck her, that would set the course for her future.

Machines were powerful. Machines were complex. Machines of metal and plastic were everywhere, and yet even they could not satisfy her curiosity.

She needed more. She needed to look at the greatest and most complex machinery known to mankind. The machinery of the living body, comprised of trillions of minute cells working in harmony. How it functioned, she did not know; but she knew that at one point, she needed to find out. If simple machines could be so useful, who knew how powerful such a complex machine could be, brought to perfection?

And fifteen years later, her ambition and drive bore fruit. Amanda Flynn, a researcher in molecular biology, found her calling. Working on a skunkworks project with the government to discover the secrets of the human genome, she found herself in her element. The stern red-haired woman found herself striding down sterile white laboratories, supervising experiments that were being conducted. The experiments were proceeding well enough, she supposed; observations came as fast as they could be processed, and groundbreaking results published to the archives at regular intervals.

But it was not fast enough for her. What was the point of observing something already present, if they were not going to improve it? The genome was being mapped at an incredible rate with the amount of funding being channelled into it, but that was all they had done for at least a few years. Mapping. Mapping. And more mapping. Categorically noting down what everything did, what alterations would accomplish, and what problems may arise from the presence or absence of a particular genetic pattern. And it irked her greatly that such knowledge was being treated as purely knowledge, and not wielded for power.

The power to create was in her hands. And she would be damned if she allowed the knowledge to simply gather dust in some old library. No, she needed to do something with it.

To forge the greatest machine of all. To enhance a human body, from an existing template.

It proved immensely difficult to find a suitable donor. Every other scientist that she had spoken to had balked, citing foolish reasons like morals or religion. Finally, in frustration, she decided that if nobody was willing to assist her on this line of research, she would do so herself. After all, she only needed a few cells, and not a limb or two. Cells that she would no longer need, given ten years or so, given the human biological clock.

Under the guise of a larger experiment, Amanda diverted significant amounts from their allotted research funds to the creation of a set of prototype artificial wombs, in which she placed heavily-modified embryos. Embryos created from herself and a male donor, one of her junior researchers with a curiously intense interest in the project – and likely the only man that had any interest in it. She projected that the result would be modified humans; faster, stronger and tougher than most other humans, equipped with denser skeletal structure and denser muscle structure, and having already-identified disease-causing genetic material scrubbed.

On examining the embryos' genes, however, she found strange sequences that have not been identified before. Dismissing this as variation brought about from her donor's own genetics, she paid it no mind.

Her overseers had noted down the specifics of what she was trying to achieve, and the military had expressed strong interest in seeing the project come to fruition. Funding flowed freely after that. The very best of staff assigned to her team, the very best of equipment delivered to her laboratory on a whim. She could have asked for no better conditions to work under.

Strangely, though most of her staff had changed when the military had taken over administration of her project, the junior researcher that had donated his genetic material remained. Phineas Black, his name was, if she recalled correctly.

Though Amanda tried to remember exactly when did she sign him onto her team, she found that she could not. There was something amiss about him, as though she were the only one that could see him. Her secretary had insisted that there was nobody called Phineas in her team, and so did the others that worked under her. One of them, a medical doctor with psychiatry training, offered to counsel her if she felt that stress was getting to her.

An offer that she vehemently denied. Admitting madness was a very good way to be removed from a project. And in her line of work, being 'removed' from a project meant that one would never be seen again. By anyone. Ever.

Thus her research continued on, watching her six 'children' develop in their glass tanks filled with biogel. It rattled her, seeing that man – Phineas – standing by the tank, watching the children as they grew. He smirked and waved irritatingly in her direction every time she passed by, offered insights when she had a problem that she couldn't crack, and comforted her with kind words after a ten or twelve-hour shift on the job.

Yet she could not acknowledge his presence. He wasn't real. He couldn't be real. Everyone else walked by him, not seeing him, hearing him. Others would think her insane if she started talking to him. He had to be simply a figment of her imagination, a spawn of her overworked mind. No person in her laboratory could simply stand with her at all times, and not have a single other person comment on his presence.

Another part of her, however, asked if that assumption was actually true. She did require his genetic material to make her children. And she was certain that he had been in her car before to be dropped off at an address somewhere in East Anglia. An address that actually existed that she had never heard of before. That alone was evidence enough that the man was real, and yet...every other piece of evidence suggested otherwise.

Nine months quickly swept by. The children – her children – had grown quite large by then. One of them was about the size of her arm. The thought of giving birth to something so large - let alone six of them - caused Amanda to reflexively clamp a hand onto her flat stomach. The thought of carrying just one of them within her, let alone passing one out of her body, made her rather queasy. Sometimes she wondered what part of Mother Nature could be so merciless as to force a female creature to carry a child within her body, and then force her to have to expel it through an organ far too small to do so easily.

The very same one that enforces growth and improvement through an endless cycle of life, death and rebirth, she thought wryly to herself.

"Dr. Flynn," one of the assistants spoke from behind a computer screen. "The foetuses are sufficiently mature, and we're ready to purge the biogel on your command,"

"Very well, Dr. Jennings. Let's confirm that we have everything, shall we?" Amanda replied, looking down at her clipboard. "Oxygen respirators?"

"Check,"

"Saline solution and IV drip?"

"Check,"

"Medical staff?"

"Check,"

"Towels and postnatal bassinets?"

She was certain Dr. Jennings snorted a little. "Check,"

"Alright. Phase One of Les Enfants Terribles-" she grimaced at the terrible name that General Adams had given her project. Did the brutish man even read those old classics? She would never know. "-is ready to conclude. Vitals on the children?"

"All vitals are green, madame," answered the thickly-accented medic beside the iron lung machine. "Oxygen levels are nominal,"

"Excellent. Dr. Jennings, you may perform the honours,"

In the corner of her eye, Amanda saw Phineas watching from the side of the room. He was standing right beside Dr. Jennings with his arms crossed, so close that if the raven-haired scientist took another step back, she would trip over his feet. She forced herself to keep a straight face when the man (or was it an illusion?) flashed her a toothy smile and gave her a thumbs-up. It would not do to look like a madwoman during such an important event.

With a gentle gurgling noise, the greenish biogel began to drain out of the six glass tanks containing the little infants. There was a strange feeling in her chest as she watched the babies finally settle in the bottom of the tanks, crying loudly as they began to take their first breaths in the world. A feeling of warmth. A profound sense of success and of contentment. Different from the other times where she had succeeded in completing a project.

"Dr. Jennings. Lower the glass," she ordered, observing that the last of the fluid had drained out of every tank. The glass tanks slid into the ground with a gentle snap-hiss, and Amanda stooped down, scooping up the nearest infant into her arms.

Or rather, tried to. She didn't expect the little child to be so heavy. "Towel," she said, and a waiting assistant pushed a towel into her waiting hands. "And prepare the scales. We need to record their weights, even if they all look very much healthy,"

She strained and heaved as she lifted two babies up to a waiting trolley. Dr. Jennings likewise had some trouble, to the point where she had to squat down and lift them up one at a time. Phineas had picked one of them up and carefully deposited one on a waiting scale. "Good God. Twenty and a half pounds for this one. She's a right heavy lass," whistled one of the other scientists.

Amanda's eye twitched. They responded to that particular baby being placed on the scales – and they did not make a single comment about the fact that Phineas was the one that placed her there. Rather, it was as though they only noticed the baby once she was on the scales, and not a moment before.

And then the man dared to grin cheekily at her, flashing a thumbs-up. She gritted her teeth and bit back an angry rant, remembering that any display of mental instability was grounds for termination of contract. But just to make sure that she was not going mad, she decided to throw some bait out there for someone else to pick up.

"Who placed the baby onto the scales?" demanded Amanda, much to the confusion of everyone present.

"Was it not you, madame?" the medic near the iron lung answered.

"No, it was not me. I was busy lifting up one of these babies to a trolley, and I am quite far from the scales, as you can see," she spoke, pointing at the set of scales all the way across the room. "So, who was it?"

Silence greeted her ears. Not a single one of the other scientists, assistants or medics admitted that they picked up that baby. "Unless the baby could somehow move herself, and purposely lie down on the scales, I do think that someone must have moved her," Amanda said. The silence had confirmed to the red-haired scientist that someone had moved her. Someone other than the staff present in the laboratory that can interact and be seen by others.

Phineas.

One day, I will get to the bottom of this, she thought to herself. But not at that very moment. They needed to complete this phase of the project before General Adams arrived to inspect their progress, and that man was certainly neither patient nor tolerant of failure of any sort.

"Enough. Get those babies wrapped up in towels, weighed and dried. We have a rather important guest coming for an inspection," Amanda snapped. She checked her wristwatch and blanched. "Ten minutes. Go!"

It was as though a fire had been lit under everyone's collective backsides, and within minutes the babies had been weighed and wrapped up in linens. Two were fast asleep when they were placed into their respective bassinets, though the others still cried loudly. Amanda scooped one up – the one that Phineas had lifted first – and cradled her, gently rocking her to calm her down. A rather difficult task for the slight woman, who struggled to hold the rather heavy baby in her arms.

"Shh," she whispered into the baby's ear, "Go to sleep, little one. You're in safe hands,"

The baby only wailed louder. Grimacing, she turned to the medic in the room. "Dr. Laurent, do you have any suggestions?"

"Yes. I believe zat she is 'ungry," the medic, Dr. Laurent said, smiling widely, "I shall fetch some milk and a few bottles,"

"Thank you, Dr. Laurent. Please hurry, I do believe that General Adams is due to arrive at any moment; and I think everyone knows what happens when the man is angered,"

"What is this I hear about when I am angered?"

Amanda very nearly jumped in terror. "Gen-General Adams, sir!" she squeaked, cursing the man's sharp hearing. Heavy boots stomped against sterile metal floor as the man marched in. A man might be a generous term for the intimidating square-jawed wall of muscle that towered over everyone else in the room. No, he was a brute, through and through.

"Speak up, woman!" he roared, causing her to flinch. "You have a voice, use it!"

"General Adams, sir!" she spoke up, much more loudly than before.

"That's better, civilian! At ease," he said, turning up a crooked nose in disdain. His hawk-like eyes swept across the room, assessing everything within. "I was told that I would be seeing some new-fangled supersoldiers today, not some milk-drinking swots. Well, woman? Where are they?"

"The results of the Les Enfants Terribles Project are right here, General. You are looking at them," Amanda said, tilting her head in the direction of the five filled cribs on a trolley.

"Babies?" he spoke slowly. His eyes narrowed in barely concealed fury. "Babies!? These are not supersoldiers!"

"With all due respect, sir, I cannot grow a foetus to an adult within nine months," Amanda said quickly, in what she hoped was a conciliatory tone. Sometimes she wondered why this particular blockhead was the one to inspect her work. "I assure you that they will, in time, grow to be strong,"

"How strong is strong?" he snorted, pointing at the nearest baby with a gloved finger nearly the size of her wrist. Which, apparently, was the wrong thing to do. The baby latched tightly onto his hand with both of her hands and squeezed. Hard – or at least, as hard as a baby could.

"What's this little limpet doing? Get off me," sneered General Adams, shaking his arm up and down. The baby still clung on stubbornly, wailing loudly at the sudden jerky movements. Eventually, the baby did fall back down into the crib, along with Adams' glove.

"Fine, kid. Have my glove, I'll just get another one," he grunted. Fearing the worst, Amanda immediately bowed her head and apologised for the baby's behaviour. "What are you apologising for, woman? I saw what I needed to see for myself,"

"You—you did?"

"Are you daft? I told you that I saw what I needed to see for myself. Means exactly that. That kid's got a damn strong grip-" he held up his hand, showing two tiny hand-shaped bruises forming on its back, "-and a fine pair of lungs, too," he continued, stuffing a finger into his ear. "Little scrapper could deafen someone when it's older, just by shouting. Glad to see that something's come out of the time and money spent on this project,"

"Thank you, sir,"

"Don't thank me just yet. Your job isn't done yet," he drawled, giving her a shark-like grin, "I was promised super-soldiers from this project, not babies. Time for you to get back to the kitchen, woman,"

Later that evening, Amanda found herself driving home in pouring rain. Her new Vauxhall now had three cribs secured upon the back seats, filled with soundly sleeping babies. She was fuming; she had been 'dismissed' from the project – and any other projects – for the coming twenty years. The promised generous annual stipend from the government's coffers, along with a new house, dulled the blow to her pride somewhat, but it still didn't change what had happened.

Dismissed. Not relegated to less demanding projects. Dismissed. Thrown aside after her crowning achievement of advancing humanity by leaps and bounds. Set aside to be a mere housewife, of all things, to look after the children until they were old enough to be enlisted. True, she did not have to look after all the babies, only three of them. Her colleague, Ellen Jennings, had been chosen to raise the other three alongside her own children, as an experimental control set to be kept away from their siblings and raised as normal children would be. The rest of the staff had been either dismissed or moved on to other projects, while the equipment that they had used were to be mothballed and put into secure storage until the conclusion of the current phase of the project.

Which was to say, motherhood. Something that she wouldn't have minded too much, if it didn't also cost her the ability to experiment to her heart's content.

"The nerve of that man!" screamed Amanda at the top of her lungs. "How dare he—I am not a maid or housewife! He can't do this to me!"

"Oh, but 'e just did, Mandy," chuckled her companion mirthlessly, "As 'e did to all of us. Ze ozzers were dismissed from ze project entirely, but at least we 'ave something to show for eet,"

Amanda in response muttered a few choice curses under her breath. "Lucille Isabelle Laurent, if I were not driving this car, I could strangle you where you sit," she growled, "This is my career that you are joking about. My career! I did not study and research for fifteen years, just to be tossed aside and become some kind of...glorified housewife!"

"Per'aps you should consider your words better," Lucille purred in a dangerously sweet voice. "After all, it seems zat you consider that your career iz worth more zan mine,"

Amanda blanched as she realised what she had just said. "I—I...oh, Lucille, I'm so very sorry—AH!"

Lucille yelped as Amanda slammed her foot on the brakes and swerved to one side. The car very nearly veered off the road; its wheels mounted the kerb and up the grass strip, tearing up quite a bit of lawn before she could bring it back under control. "Mon dieu! Amanda!" the brunette medic said sharply, "Iz something ze matter?"

"I-I nearly hit a man," Amanda replied, breathing shallowly. Little Whinging was a quiet neighbourhood. Most kept to themselves, rarely ever going outside their homes except for maybe a walk on Sunday mornings. She looked in the rear view mirror; there was a group of hooded and robed men and women cavorting around in the rain, right in the middle of the road. Not a care in the world as they splashed about in puddles, skipping and twirling in some frenzied display of joy. She even swore that there were honest-to-God owls perched on some of their arms.

"What man?"

The red-haired scientist froze. She pulled the car over and stopped, staring in the rear view mirror again. They were right there! How could she not see them? "Look in the wing mirror. They're there, just before the intersection,"

Lucille glanced at the wing mirror, and then gazed at her with concern in her eyes. "Ma cherie," she said soothingly, lifting a hand and stroking her gently on her cheek, "Zere is nobody zere,"

"There—there's nobody there?" Amanda said shakily, checking the rear view mirror again. She could clearly see them; there was a woman spinning about with an infant in her arms, with a man dancing gaily to her side as others clapped and cheered. She swore she could even hear them! Was this another case of something like that dreaded Phineas again? The man that she knew existed, but none of the others could see or hear? Was she actually going mad?

"Non. Ze streets – zey are empty. I can only see zis 'orrible rain zat is everywhere. Do you feel quite alright? Per'aps you are too tired after work today. After all, giving birth to six beautiful daughters iz exhausting, non?" Lucille asked, "You look razzer pale, ma cherie. Would you like to switch? I could drive the rest of ze way,"

"N-No, it's quite alright, Lucille. We're almost there,"

Amanda pulled away from the kerb, focusing on everything but the weirdness that had somehow crept into her life. Yes, perhaps she was only overworked, and was imagining things. At least Privet Drive was only another turn away from Magnolia Crescent, and then she could have a relaxing hot bath and a strong cup of tea. Yes, that might just help her calm her apparently frayed nerves. Thankfully, nothing stranger occurred during the rest of their short drive. The red-haired geneticist held her breath as her car finally came to a rest in the garage of Number Three, Privet Drive; only when she heard the garage door slam closed did she sigh in relief.

"Ah, 'ome sweet 'ome. Did you say the trolley was in ze back of ze car, ma cherie?"

"Yes. It should be there, dear,"

"Tres bien. I shall move our children to zeir rooms," Lucille chirped happily, an impish smile on her face. She leaned in and gave Amanda a chaste kiss on the lips. "I can 'ardly believe it, Mandy. After all zese years...I...we...you performed ze impossible. Children to call our own,"

"While the conditions aren't...optimal," Amanda mumbled, grimacing as she recalled what the military referred to their children as – supersoldiers, tools, nothing more and nothing less, "Yes, I suppose that is quite apt. We do have children of our own now,"

"Oh, do be quiet. You truly know 'ow to ruin a woman's good mood," chided Lucille, though there was no bite in it. "And 'ere I was, thinking of giving you a proper...'ow do you say it? Ah, yes. A most thorough and exciting examination...in ze bedroom. Doctor's orders to treat your fatigue and your anxiety with some tender loving care, yes?"

The sight of Lucille gnawing coyly on her lips, coupled with her suggestive comment caused Amanda to flush a bright scarlet. On another day, she would have pounced upon her partner there and then. However, her mind was still too disturbed by the strange events that had happened.

First was the way that Phineas could interact with the baby, and yet be completely undetected by everyone in the room aside from herself. The second was the way that people noticed said baby after she had been placed on the scales, but not a moment before. And after that, the most obvious. Lucille was clearly in her car with her; yet when she swerved around the group of revelling madmen in Magnolia Crescent, Lucille had claimed that there was nobody there.

She knew otherwise, of course. The baby couldn't have moved on its own if it weren't for Phineas moving her. In fact, none of the babies would have existed at all to begin with if Phineas wasn't real, yet Lucille was fussing over one of the babies that had started crying. It was completely inexplicable; a clear contradiction of facts! How could someone exist, and be utterly undetectable? There was something else at play here, she was sure of it. Something that was affecting the perceptions of those around her; something undetectable, invisible and omnipresent. Something that, for some odd reason, did not affect her.

Whatever the case, Amanda swore that she would get to the bottom of it. Eventually. After all, what could be measured must be measured, and what could not must be made so.

A/N:

This is a rewrite of another story that I had written. Going over the previous story, it has come to my attention that there are numerous major plot holes that occurred fairly early on, and a major departure from the original plot line that greatly diminished the potential of the story. After debating whether or not I should attempt to fix the existing story, or to rewrite it with the original concept, I went with the latter. There is far more conflict to be pursued (and therefore a proportionally greater amount of drama to be exploited) with a greater culture shock and/or greater amounts of blood status conflict. And as we all know, conflict makes for interest.

Aside from that, I felt that I was a little too ambitious with the scale of the project. Covering all seven books was perhaps a little much to cover in detail. The primary focus of the story will be on the Goblet of Fire and onwards.

Another note to readers: This story may potentially contain Ronbashing and Dumbbashing. If you are allergic to either of these plot flavours, please be advised that I do not have anti-inflammatory potions and/or lotions available.

Stay tuned, folks! Updates may not be that frequent, but I assure you that they will be much better polished than if I were to stick to a scheduled update pattern.

-ArcturusWolf