Summary: Bode, an Unspeakable, has recently been promoted to the Life Subdepartment of the Department of Mysteries. Unfortunately for Bode, Life is a pain and his subordinate is having problems.
Categories: General Fics Characters: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 2104
Read: 1277
Published: 11/17/04
Updated: 11/17/04
1. A Day with Life by ByMerlinsBeard
A Day with Life by ByMerlinsBeard
Disclaimer: Harry Potter was created by J.K. Rowling. The rights to Harry Potter and his universe belong to her and multiple companies, including, but not limited to, Scholastic, Bloomsbury and Warner Brothers. I have no rights to her material and am not making any money on this project.
"A Day with Life"
Life took a big bite of the food in front of it, almost taking Bode’s right hand with it.
“Watch out!” Bode snapped, jumping away from Life. “One of these days you will take a bite out of me.”
Life looked over at him while taking another large mouthful of the blend of vegetables, fruit, and meat in front of it.
“I mean it. You may not like my company very much, but you’d better learn to live with me. We’ll be seeing each other a lot in the next several years. Lord knows how long it will be until the next Unspeakable comes.”
Life swallowed. “You humans have a pathetic view of time. To you, a day seems like forever. A week: an eternity. Let alone years. To me, the decade or so I will spend with you will pass in the blink of an eye.”
Bode sat down in the only piece of furniture in the large room. He spent a few seconds trying to get comfortable, despite the fact that his three weeks in the Life Sub-department of the Department of Mysteries had told him that it was a futile attempt. The Ministry of Magic wouldn’t pay for a better chair than the wooden, straight-back chair he had now. It had responded to his request for one with a rather nasty letter about how Bode shouldn’t be sitting down on the job and how his Sub- department was already guzzling up funds. Bode slumped down in his chair in defeat. Could he help that Life ate like there was no tomorrow?
“Lucky you,” Bode muttered under his breath.
Life growled. “You’d best learn to lose your sarcasm. All other beings say what they mean or say nothing at all.”
“I meant it,” Bode said, looking up at Life’s face.
It was the strangest face Bode had ever seen in his life and, yet, it was also the most natural. Every species, be it animal, plant, or microorganism, showed up in this creature’s face and body. Even the human face must be there, Bode realized for the first time. Bode looked hard for the human in the creature. It showed the most in its eyes. Intelligence shined in Life’s eyes like it shined in the eyes of the people around him.
Not that there were people around Bode most of the time. There was only one Unspeakable in the Life Sub-department, just like there had been only one Unspeakable in the Existence Sub-department. Bode was shocked that he almost missed that job. That miserable job of making sure that humanity remained alive and well by taking care of everything besides people themselves. He actually missed cataloguing extinct species. He missed checking to make sure there were no asteroids on a collision course with Earth. He even missed writing the overly-polite letters to the leaders of alien worlds, begging them to prevent their scientists from abducting the defenseless Muggles on Earth.
“What are you thinking?” Life asked, sitting down on its large haunches.
Bode looked up, frowning. “I’m thinking about that miserable decade that will pass by in the blink of an eye to you. What are you thinking?”
“I don’t think. I know,” Life said, before kicking up a chunk of food and catching it in its mouth.
“If you know, then why’d you have to ask what I was thinking?” Bode asked.
“I only know important things. What you’re thinking isn’t worth knowing, so I have to ask,” Life said.
“How nice,” Bode said, under his breath.
“I hear better than you do,” Life said.
“Sorry,” Bode said. If Life was upset by sarcasm, then Bode wouldn’t be sarcastic. Life was easily twelve feet tall when it stood up. It could eat Bode in one bite if it wanted to, and Bode wasn’t entirely sure Life didn’t want to eat him. Life did three things: eat, sleep, and irritate Bode.
Life sneezed, blowing Bode out of his uncomfortable chair and breaking Bode out of his thoughts.
“Allergies,” Life said, almost apologetically.
Bode picked himself off of the ground and magically removed Life’s snot. “You’re Life. What can you possibly be allergic to?”
“Your cologne, I think,” Life said, seriously. “I can smell better than you can, too, obviously.”
Bode laughed. “I thought you said you didn’t think.”
Life laughed, too. Bode had to admit, he didn’t much like this creature, but he loved the creature’s laugh, as long as Life wasn’t laughing at him. He imagined that Life’s voice sounded like Earth speaking, but Life’s laugh must sound like God’s laugh.
“Just seeing how much I have to talk down to you," Life said. "You Unspeakables have gotten dumber and dumber since the first ones. You can’t even figure out how the magic you use works anymore. You just use it like it’s nothing more than a machine.”
“Do you know how it works?” Bode asked, sitting down on the ground next to the chair.
Life smiled, showing its long, pointed teeth. It was a rather frightening sight. “I am that magic. The first Unspeakables made me right after they made the Sub-department of Existence.”
“If you’re so much more intelligent than me, then why am I sitting here babysitting you?”
“I get lonely,” Life said, simply.
Bode was taken off guard. Perhaps the creature was more human than he thought. Bode didn’t have much time to think about it. A paper airplane flew through the door and into his face. Bode grabbed it out of the air angrily before it could hit him again.
“A letter,” Life said.
“Obviously,” Bode muttered. “Sorry,” he added, quickly, before Life could growl at him. Bode opened the note. It said one word.
“‘Emergency!’” Bode said, jumping to his feet. “It’s from Paudany.”
“That’s the new Unspeakable, isn’t it? The one you were supposed to have trained by now?” Life asked.
“I’ve got to go see what’s happening,” Bode said, running to the door that separated the Life room from the Existence Wing.
“It’s probably just an asteroid pummeling towards Earth. Nothing to worry about,” Life said, turning its attention back to its food.
Bode tore into the room that Rebecca Paudany did most of her work in. He saw her sitting at the plate tectonics desk, leaning over the model that showed where all of Earth’s faults were.
“What is it?” Bode asked, panicking.
Paudany turned to look at him. She had tears running down her face. “There’s going to be an awful earthquake in Japan this afternoon,” she said.
Bode frowned a little. “How awful will it be?”
“Eight point seven,” Paudany said, looking down at the model.
“That’s it?” Bode asked.
“A lot of people will die!” she said, collapsing down into her chair.
Bode sighed. He’d wondered when they’d have to have this talk. He walked over and sat down in the chair closest to hers. A nice, comfortable chair. With armrests. And cushions.
“You can’t do anything about it,” he said.
She rolled her eyes, angrily.
“You have to let it happen.”
“Thousands may die! Tens of thousands!”
“You can’t intervene. Just forget about it. Don’t watch the Muggle news. Don’t read Muggle newspapers. Ever. You’ll go crazy if you do,” Bode said.
“But they’ll die!”
“They always do.”
“I could save them!”
Bode sighed. He understood. He knew what she was feeling. He’d lived with these natural disasters for seven years. “Don’t you think I’ve argued your points? I was the last person here, remember?”
“I could save them!”
“Then why didn’t you? Why did you call me in here?” he asked.
She started crying even more. “I’m not supposed to,” she spat. “I’m not supposed to intervene, and I’m following the rules, allowing real people to die because of them. I am supposed to let people die.”
Bode had to look strong. On top of his own duties, he had to help this girl adjust to being an Unspeakable.
“I know how you feel, Paudany. Each one of us does. We’ve all had to deal with that first tragedy.”
“What was yours?”
“An earthquake, as well.”
“How big?”
“Big enough.”
“What did you do?”
“I let it happen. It wasn’t until two days later, when I found out that it had only been a tremor, and that the real quake was coming that I called in Croaker, the man ahead of me.”
Paudany just stared at the place where the epicenter of the earthquake would be.
“Each of us are put in a position, right away, where we can play God. This Sub-department is the true test of the Unspeakables” not that written test you took to get in here. Every concept that can be found in the Department of Mysteries we have to come to terms with in Existence. Power, knowledge, love, hate, life, death, faith... fate.
“Rebecca, you have a great amount of power and very little authority to use it. You’re allowed to save humanity, but you can’t save people. And that hurts... because, let’s face it... if all people were to disappear, it would probably be good for the rest of the Earth. Hardly a tragedy... who would mourn humanity’s death? But when one person dies””
“I thought you were going to make me feel better,” she said, angrily, wiping her eyes.
“You’re better off hearing it now, because God knows how long it will take you to come to grips with it,” Bode responded, forcefully.
“I’ll never come to grips with it,” she muttered.
Bode didn’t respond. That was true. She never would, if she was anything like him.
“Everyone dies, right?” he asked.
“Of course. Except for the Flamels.”
“They’re the exception. There are many deaths we have no control over.”
“So?”
“So who are you to decide who dies and who lives?”
“By saving those I can,” she said, stubbornly.
“And if they were supposed to die? What if they were going to become an awful person, such as You-Know-Who?”
She shuddered.
“You understand, then. We can’t see the future. Hell, we’re the ones making sure the future remains a mystery, except to an extraordinary few with a gift. You understand why you can’t intervene?”
“Yes.”
He stood up. “Try not to think about it for the rest of the day. Forget it if you can.”
“I can’t.”
“Probably not,” Bode admitted. He walked over to the door and paused before leaving. “Paudany?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you write ‘Emergency!’ on something, please mean it.”
She smiled a little. “Sorry.”
Bode nodded and walked back into the room with Life. Life looked away quickly and started whistling.
“Were you eavesdropping?”
“I hear better than you humans,” Life said. “What I hear, I listen to.”
“So, what did you think?”
“About what?”
“It’s too late to play innocent now. What did you think about what I said?” Bode asked.
“Does it matter? What’s been said has been said.”
“Forget it. I was just trying to make conversation.”
Life paused. “You did all right. Could have been better,” it said, quickly.
“Thank you,” Bode said, deciding to ignore the insults. He thought for a few minutes. “Will you ever die?”
Life looked over at him. “I’ve never lived.”
Bode laughed. “What do you mean, you’ve never lived. You’re Life. How could you never live?”
“I am Life. All of the magic of life is inside of me. I hold life, but I’m not alive. When everything living dies, I will merely cease to exist.”
Bode thought about that a minute. “Would you want to live?”
Life looked down at its food. It growled a little. “Get me some more food, please. I’m running out.”
Bode nodded and magicked some food into the bowl. He sat down. Life didn’t talk the rest of the day.
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