Omakes And Other Scenes

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The Sword Of Gryffindor And Other Mistakes

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Everyone stared in shock at the portrait above the teachers table, then Headmistress McGonogall spoke up, her voice disbelieving.

"What was that?"

Salazar shrugged as he glanced at Godric, who was examining the ceiling of the Great Hall with an expression of studied innocence.

"I said that Godric's sword came about due to us both getting, as you would say it, totally hammered. We were celebrating our shared birthday and he'd got me some new cauldrons from a blacksmith he knew while I paid the Goblins for a sword. Godric made a comment about how it was unfair that the nature Goblin Silver meant that you couldn't use magic on it, then things went downhill since the drinks we were sharing were a lot stronger than I had intended. When we woke up the next morning and managed to stop our heads from exploding from the hangover, it was to find that we had somehow managed to weave a hundred enchantments into the sword and somehow give life to Godric's favourite hat at the same time. We were never able to figure out how we did it."

For a long, long moment, the entire hall was silent, and then a disbelieving snort sounded.

"You and Godric got drunk…" Severus managed before he started to laugh in disbelief. Salazar nodded, glaring at his fellow Founder.

It wasn't the last time we did that." He muttered. "Did you ever wonder why the Astronomy Tower is taller at the top than it is at the base? And as for what Helga and Rowena managed to do…"

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"I accidently dropped some of Salazar's potion ingredients into my fireplace one winter." Helga shrugged with an embarrassed smile. The teachers (who had scrambled to find the portrait she had been occupying at the time) simply stared at her. "Rowena and I were getting cold, and of course Godric and Salazar were being such manly men about not feeling the cold…"

"So, wha' did ye do?" Hagrid rumbled curiously.

"You know it as the Room of Requirements." Helga shrugged. "Oh, it's useful, but how we managed to create an unliving interactive mindscape with dimensional and temporal capabilities, we still don't know. I swear, there's even Veela magic involved, and neither Rowena or myself even knew they existed until we met one a decade later. Whatever we did, we were totally unable to work out what the heck we had done afterwards."

The assembled teachers looked at each other with shocked expressions.

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"Oh, the Great Hall." Rowena nodded. "Well, we sort-of meant to do it, it took us ages to work out the arithmancy for it, and then we… well, we screwed up. I was ill that day and I cast three of the spells backwards and in the wrong order. Somehow, it set up an odd effect that uses leftover ambient magic from spellcasting to power the charm as well as blurring the edges of the image as if the walls were fading away without sacrificing any image sharpness. We were able to create a whole new series of illusion spells using that effect, once I'd finished working out just what had happened, that is."

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"The stairs are still moving randomly?" Godric scowled. "Dammit, we tried everything to stop that. It was Rowena's fault, she was trying some newly-discovered foreign herbs in a stew and when we stopped having those hallucinations, we discovered that Helga and I'd placed charms in Parseltongue on the stairs, magelocked so only we could release them. Of course, we couldn't as we aren't parselmouths! Salazar was sniggering for a month over that little escapade."

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"The Gargoyle." Salazar sighed. "Don't mention the Gargoyle, that was a potions accident. I was having my potions stock moved when the statue was knocked off the upstairs balcony and landed straight on the chest containing my prepared potions and some that I had come across and intended to analyse. Next thing we knew, the damn statue was stretching its wings and looking round for orders…"

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Minerva sat in her bed, staring blankly into the darkness. That day had almost destroyed her view of the competence of the Founders, the only major project that had actually worked for them had been the Wards, and even that had taken advantage of the crystals that Salazar had accidently grown in his largest cauldron while trying to make a potion to cure bunions.

How many more of the Great Witches and Wizards of history owed their fame to accidents and errors?

And did she really want to know?

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Afternote – My thanks to elmoryakahn whose critiques about my lack of usage of ancient magic (a common thing in fanfiction) sparked this story. I thought that the greatest masterworks of the Founders being a result of them being drunk/high/feverish/whatever was just too good to pass up on. The sword idea was based on the webcomic Tales Of The Questor where the main hero and his friends get totally hammered and wake up the next morning to discover that they've enchanted a sword so that it can do anything, from telling the time (wrongly) to firing lightning bolts, but each effect is totally random. The hero calls it Wildcard.

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Lucus' Documentary

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George stroked his beard as he stared at the non-human ladies before him, then he looked down at the collection of files in front of him.

"So… you want me to work with Playful Cub Games to create a series of informational films about the Old Republic and eventually the Clone Wars?"

Asajj and Ahsoka both nodded and George smiled as he picked up one of the folders.

"This file will be a brilliant starting point, it'll make an excellent series of films as it has it all. Betrayal, romance, danger, action and quite a bit of comedy. This person, this… Zayne Carrick… I can do a lot with this! I'll call it… Star Wars!"

"Are you sure this was a good idea?" Asajj whispered as Lucus continued going on about how he was going to write the script personally.

"I've asked your husband to help with the writing." Ahsoka whispered back. "He'll keep him on-track."

Asajj gave the Jedi a deadpan look and Ahsoka shrugged.

"Okay, it'll go strange, but at least Sirius knows how to write good dialogue."

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Afternote – George Lucus may be good at coming up with ideas, but he can't write good dialogue worth damn. Then again, neither can I.

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Children Of The Green

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The giant spaceship came to a halt far above the plane of the ecliptic, the arrays of highly-sensitive passive scanners reaching out.

"Is this the lost human colony where my son was accidently abandoned? And you had to go back to get him?" one of the long-armed figures aboard asked, earning a small nod.

"Yes, Great Diplomat. He made contact with a pre-maturity native who aided him in contacting the ship."

"Great Diplomat!" Another voice called. "Status change, the planet now has multiple orbital structures and we are picking up engine emissions from the next planets in and out!"

"What?!" The diplomat half-snarled. "They've advaced this quickly? What level are they?"

"Current estimates are low-galactic with an unusual tech-advance. They have matter transmission rings!"

An pair of images appeared on one of the display boards, one image showing a starship entering a short cylindrical structure a hundred meters wide and five deep, only to emerge virtually instantly from a second, identical structure above the next planet in.

"I have made my decision." The Great Diplomat said solemnly. "These people are too advanced, probably because they somehow managed to find a sample of our technology and built on it. We shall call off the planned invasion and seek a different homeworld away from the Empire."

"As you command." Came the reply and the ship vanished again, unaware of the two starfighters approaching it.

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"Dammit!" Ahsoka swore. "Those sawn-off idiots left without talking to us."

"Elliot will be really disappointed." Harry replied. "He always wondered what happened to his friend."

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Afternote – In Star Wars I – The Phantom Menace, three E.T's appear in the bottom-right corner of the Senate as the camera pans across. That means that canonically, the film E.T. is part of Star Wars!

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RPG

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Will walked down the road to his friends house, hiding a smile as most of the passers-by stared at his Jedi robes and the lightsaber hanging from his belt. It had been a month since the battle that had rocked the world and John had finally called the group back together for a new game.

Walking up to the door, he knocked on it and smiled as a 'Coming!' emerged. A moment later, the latch unlocked and the door opened.

"Oh my… dammit, Will, you look… you really are a…?"

Will grinned and reached out, lifting a rock from the flower bed, floating it around the garden and then placing it back down in the depression it had come from.

"All this time…" John sighed, then he mock-glared. "You could have told us, you know!"

Will shrugged. "Would you have believed me?"

"I do now." John admitted, motioning for him to enter. "The others want to see you do your Jedi mojo stuff, but you are banned from using it on the dice!"

Will laughed as the door closed behind them.

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Afternote – Yeah, using the Force to cheat at dice is something done in canon, the 'Chance Cube' in Episode I is a prime example.