487. Changing Times

It was the 7th year for the triplets. The new head boy and head girl were chosen. Maximus became the head boy and Aurelia became the head girl, Clementia was too shy for this position, albeit being highly deserving as her grades were at the top of the class.

Everyone sat in the great hall and waited for the first years to arrive and get sorted into the house of their choice. Most kids looked scared, but there was a surprise, around 800 new kids were arriving this year. Ever since Magnus completely defeated Voldemort and his forces, the numbers have been increasing each day.

The talking hat did its little poetry and got to work. Soon enough it was Harry's turn. He sat down on the stool. In an instant, the hat announced, "SLYTHERIN!"

This was Harry's own choice as his friend, Draco, had already been sorted into Slytherin. He happily moved to the Slytherin table and sat beside Maximus.

Then came Hermione, she too went to sit beside Aurelia soon after. Slowly, all the kids got sorted into their respective houses. A few of them had their own choices, some let the hat decide.

It went on until one boy sat down and the Hat turned silent, seemingly having a conversation with the boy. It was Neville Longbottom.

"Are you sure? You can do great in Gryffindor, I can already see it." Hat asked.

Neville shook his head, "No, I want to go to Slytherin. I heard that his Majesty saved my mum, dad and grandma from the Death Eaters. I want to study where he did. If I can attain even a fraction of his power, I will consider myself successful. And my grandma said that students from Slytherin get invited by his Majesty for dinner after they graduate."

"Fine, if that is what you wish for. SLYTHERIN!" The hat announced. The Longbottom family was well known, so most other houses felt disappointed.

Next came Ron Weasely. It only needed a tap of the hat for a decision to be made, "Ah! Another Weasely, GRYFFINDOR!"

With that, the new school year started.

...

Camelot,

"Dad, what is a blowjob?" Seven-year-old Athena asked her father in the study room.

Magnus' face strained as if all muscles were pulled. He smiled and put her on his lap and softly asked, "Where did you hear it, dear?"

"Uncle dirty beard was talking on the phone." She said.

"Well, cleaning something by blowing air on it is called a blowjob. Your uncle was just talking about this. By the way, do you want to learn a new charm?" He asked her to take her focus off of what she heard and allow her to forget it.

"YES!" She jumped in excitement. Being 7 years old, she had already shown signs of magical potency of a high calibre. Magnus had expected it already. At age 5 she started to make things fly towards her. The reason it started was funny too, it turns out, she used to feel hungry and steal cookies from the kitchen. Initially, she tried to climb the shelves, eventually, she used magic and made the jar fly to her.

She was later found by Emma with a half-empty jar of chocolate chip cookies. Instead of getting angry at her, Emma clicked a hundred photos of her.

Magnus eventually realised she was using magic and decided to start teaching her early. Initially, he only made her memorise the spells.

But then she started chanting them on her own, using them. Of course, it was not very strong without a wand. Heck, even Magnus needed a wand to use truly powerful spells. Wandless magic was no joke.

"Okay, today I will teach you a charm called Lumos Momenta. It can create light when you are in darkness," he went on to teach her while she listened attentively. But Magnus was already planning on teaching Ragnar a lesson.

...

As 1991 started to come to an end, the family got busy. Every end of the year was like a festival for the family. There were not only real festivals but Athena's birthday, then the triplets' birthdays were also in the last months.

Magnus headed out to do some shopping for exactly this, but he also called his best friends, Ragnar and Severus. They will reach him by the apparition, but to get Bobby, Magnus went out on his own.

He got into a nice 1991 Mercedes Benz 300GD G-Wagon and hit the road. Bobby was in his office, so he drove to the FutureTek Tower.

...

"BOBBY! Come on, I promise I will not tell anyone your embarrassing secrets," Magnus, like when he was young, shouted as he entered Bobby's office. The secretary greeted him but didn't stop.

He barged in. "Bobby, let's go and play,"

Sitting at the end of the room behind a cramped desk, Bobby got alerted. Nobody entered his office unannounced. But he was wearing a nice suit today as he had an important meeting.

But when he saw Magnus and heard him, a chuckle left his mouth, "Those days, I remember when you tried to find my new house and only knew the street. So you shouted at each house."

Magnus took a seat, "Yes, and we should never forget those days. Anyway, you look too dressed, got any plans?"

"Yup, I have a meeting with the US president. We are going to send the first manned mission to Mars in 1999 and time the landing with the turn of this century." Bobby revealed.

Magnus liked it, "Nice. I will be going there anyway, so I will be the man to welcome the new century to the planet."

"I won't be going, however. The trip will be long. I spoke to your father and he said that the AM engine will be ready by then but it won't be in its best shape. Basically, he meant that it won't be too fast. It will still take you 3 months to reach Mars and then another 3 months in the return journey." Bobby explained.

But Magnus had another idea instead, "Bobby. These past years, I have put all my focus on developing the cancer drug and a way to allow large objects to portkey in space. My idea is simple, space has a lot more magic than on Earth.

"If I can create some sort of a giant portkey that can store the Dark Matter, then allow spaceships to teleport to the next portkey then recharge itself. From my past experiments, the limit of a Portkey on the moon to another point in space is about 500,000 kilometres. Meanwhile, a portkey from Earth can only take us to the Moon, which is a 384,400 km distance.

The space between Earth and Mars is 309.31 million km. This means it will take 618 Portkeys to take us to Mars from Earth. This means that it will take us about 11 minutes to complete this journey. However, I was just talking about a normal uncharged portkey.

"Now if I can somehow create a portkey that can gather magic from around it. Then we could possibly jump a million or even more kilometres. This means the journey might only take us 5 minutes. You see what I am getting at?" Magnus described his plan.

Bobby stood up and turned around to face the big bookcase behind his desk. He pulled a book and then placed it back. Soon, in a spectacular view, the bookcase split apart without making a single sound. It was a big safe. Bobby picked a brown envelope from it and closed it.

"I had it made by Adrian years ago to keep my and company's valuable patents. Anyway, if what you are saying can truly happen, then won't the Antimatter engine be useless?" he asked.

Magnus shook his head, "No, not at all. Don't forget, to put the portkey in its place, we will need the aircraft to make the journey conventionally. Not to mention, my goal to create this portkey technology is to colonise the whole Galaxy, not just the solar system.

"In the future, maybe after I'm long gone, they can create giant plotter aircraft with AM engines. These will be sent around the Galaxy to place Portkeys around the Galaxy. I believe that even after I and you are long gone, our future generations will keep on pushing the tech. It's very much possible that one day a portkey can take us a hundred million kilometres away. When that happens, we can literally travel from one edge of Galaxy to another in 5 years.

"But for now, my goal is Mars. 11 minutes to Mars seems pretty juicy honestly. The AM engine will instead help us make travel to various moons of planets in our solar system. I heard Titan of Saturn is a good piece of rock."

Bobby had no idea what to say, "Magnus, if I did not know you, I'd say you are a mad man. Truly, we cannot let such talks reach those outside. Anyway, here, look at the design of the first ship to Mars."

Magnus closed the papers, "Nope, get up. We're going out shopping. Rag and Sev will be joining us soon."

"B-But... Ugh... forget it, I will tell Harrison to wait." He shrugged and went along.

[You can see Bobby on Discord - https://discord.gg/DgHkrAn OR see them on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mister_immortal_novel]

__________________

Special thanks to *DougErNuts* *Oluwatimileyin Olayemi* *BirdRant* *Franklin Walley* *Brennan Tubbs