The Principia Paper

Blurb - George finds his work at the museum fascinating and his boss abominable. His latest task is to transcribe a paper concealed with a narrow strip of wood in the spine of a book. What is it? What does the Latin mean? Who are J and R and P and S? Why is George's boss suddenly walking like that?

George Moran hastily scanned the sheets as they came off the printer, hoping that he would not find any mistakes. On the whole, he was quite pleased with his letter and even more pleased with the transcription but then he had to find what amusement he could in a job that had not turned out quite the way he had expected. Somewhere between his childhood dreams of becoming another, better, Indiana Jones, and the present, commonsense had kicked in to ensure that he ended up in a job that would enable him to keep regular hours and be available to mow the lawn for his parents before every Sunday lunch. No swinging from bullwhips while battling Nazis for George - not unless you counted his ongoing antagonism with his Head of Department. He enjoyed his job and thought that he did it quite well but Chisholm was vocal in his disagreement and George would have dearly loved to punch his head. With a discontented grunt, George diverted his thoughts from Herr Oberst Chisholm and returned to his sheets of paper. One hand strayed yet again to the slender object on his desk that had been occupying his thoughts for the best part of a month and he played idly with it, enjoying the faint tingling sensation it caused in his fingers, while re-reading his letterand the transcription of what he had begun to call, quite privately, the Principia Paper.

...........................................................................

British Museum,

Conservation Department (Paper, Parchment and Vellum)

Cromwell Road

London W1C 23FG

14^th July 2002.

Dear Mr Scullard,

It is with great pleasure that I return to you your first edition of Isaac Newton's Principia. I trust that you will be pleased with its condition.

As requested, we have removed the fungal growth, cleaned the cover and endpapers and we have also deleted most of the modern annotations. Luckily the majority of them were in some form of graphite and came away quite easily but some were in ink and the only solvent that would have been effective would also have removed the ancient printing. Unfortunately this includes the entry on the title page which reads "Easy peasy after Arithmancy" and the ones refuting the section on gravitational force. If you decide that these comments are too scurrilous to remain please return the book to us with written instructions to that effect, signing and returning the enclosed disclaimer at the same time.

The foreign bodies that you detected concealed in the spine of the volume proved to be of some interest. The larger item was a slender, tapering, turned piece of timber of approximately thirty-two cm in length that was identified by a colleague from the timber conservation department as being of willow. It is similar in appearance to a draper's yardstick but is obviously complete and, interestingly, appears to have been split in half, lengthways, and rejoined. I have circulated a description around all our departments but have been unable to get a firm identification. Therefore, we have retained it in order to refer it to the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum of Mankind in the hope that someone there may be able to help us. The other item was a single sheet of poor quality parchment that appeared originally to have been rolled around the strip of timber when inserted into the spine of the book. The parchment had settled into sharp folds but we were able to unfold and flatten it. It appears to have been part of a notebook of some kind as one edge is torn and seems to be a continuation of a much longer Ms. There is writing on both sides, mainly in a dense black ink which analysis proves to comprise gum Arabic, ground oak galls and some other burnt organic matter, possibly bone. The ink is insoluble in any of our usual solvents. The handwriting is of varying legibility, with four discernible hands. It appears to be a roughly written list of instructions with comments and criticisms added at a later date in various colours of ink.

Although clearly some kind of elaborate hoax, I thought you might be interested in reading it and so append a transcription of the whole work. The annotations to the list were written in a very scrappy and untidy manner which I have not been able to render by the four writers who are identified only by their initials. Unfortunately, in the interests of legibility, I have had to sacrifice much of the spontaneity of the work.

I also enclose our invoice for the work done to date.

Yours sincerely,

George Moran

Assistant Conservator (Paper, Parchment and Vellum)

Transcription of manuscript found in spine of late 17^th century volume, comprising a list of what appears to be magical spells written a very poor and inaccurate form of Latin and modern English. The list is written in one scholarly hand and annotated in the same hand plus three others.

(Immediately above where the Ms starts and at intervals down the right hand side are a number of rough sketches of some kind of small round creatures with wings.)

Anser proximus - hex, causes recipient to goose the nearest person. Yes, success! J. Yes, S, Yes, P. I thought McGonagall was going to stop breathing! R.

Asiduructare - hex, regular belching, angle of wand dictates number of seconds of interval. Add 'omnibus' to apply to large groups.

Asiduflatus - hex, regular farting, ditto wand. As with 'asiduructare', add 'omnibus' to apply to large groups. Care and experience will allow a powerful user to grade onset in order to produce a syncopated rhythm.

OK, but next time we use it outside! S

That gets my vote. J

Pedus concinne - charm, causes recipient to walk as though wearing four inch stiletto heels.

Hmm, a little disturbing. J

Well, I thought it gave R a certain something. S

And Avery thought so too. P

Oh you guys! R

Revisivestibulum - hex, causes recipient to be unable to go anywhere except the cloakroom.

Did anyone remember to unhex Lily?!!

We all thought you did. S

Stultus -curse, renders recipient very stupid, time limit of approx three hours (length of average OWLs examination).

Works fine. J

Yes, the test subject never even noticed! R

So that explains Ss result in Divination. P

You bastards! S

Tantum Calceus - hex, causes recipient to believe themselves to be wearing only shoes.

Snape's face!! S

Desipiens - scatter-brained hex, scrambles thought processes and renders forgetful, time limit of two days. Do NOT muddle up with Disicerebrum curse.

Extreme care here. J Remember last time! R

Poor bloody frog. S

Vestiservala Gallica - charm, changes clothing into that of a French maid (use with Pedus concinne)

I think we should try this one out on J. R

I second that motion. S

I third. P

Disicerebrum - curse, scatters brains violently over wide area.

Eww, yuk. P

Ictosarmentum - hex, most commonly used in large gatherings, when shouted with correct wand gesture will cause every homosexual in the room to slap his boyfriend.

Tuesday 22^nd June, 1975, Slytherin common room, will surely go down in Hogwarts history. J

Nepabractarus - curse, causes victim to believe his trousers are full of scorpions.

Not funny. J

It was from where I was standing. S.

Yep, 'fraid so. R

Magnesmulierculae - renders one irresistible to women.

Magnesnautae/miles - ditto sailors/soldiers etc. Magneshomo dives et senex - ditto rich old men.

(All three 'Magnes' charms wear of in a time dependent upon the latent sex appeal of the user). Three weeks and counting! S

Rubbish, you ran out of sailors on Wednesday! R

Rapum rapidus interanus - curse, locates root vegetable (usually a turnip) quite violently into lower bowel.

But who do we hate enough to test it on? P

Malfoy. J

Malfoy. S

Malfoy! Pity he's left. R

Sternutamentum alga - hex, causes recipient to sneeze copious amounts of seaweed.

OK but stay out of line of fire, the stains are murder to get out. S

Semper simper - hex, causes recipient to smile continuously.

Don't worry P, It'll wear off in a day or two. J

Testetinnare - hex, causes recipient's testicles to jingle when he walks. 'Mammatinnare' suitable variation for females.

Nice one! S

Crabbe can't creep up on us any more. R

Conticescere - charm, casts pall of silence over small area defined by wand gesture.

Works ok for me. S

And me, R

Me, too. Get this one right, P, or it's boxing gloves for you. J

Opinariavis - hex, causes recipient to think he/she is a bird.

OK, but perhaps next time NOT on the roof. P

P, you have no sense of adventure. S

Opinariavia - hex, causes recipient to think he/she is hexer's grandmother.

Ascerberiso - hex, causes recipient to laugh bitterly in inappropriate circumstances.

I can do this one! But only on S, I wonder why. P

Peroleo caesus - curse, causes victim to smell strongly of cheese, variety determined by strength of wand flick, e.g., a gentle wave = Camembert, a full arm whip crack = condemned Gorgonzola.

Another one for outside. J

Right, that was the longest Potions class ever! S

Bimembrum - charm, of limited and rather specialised use.

It Works, It works! They both worked! S

We know, we heard you. R

Brush up on that Conticescere charm or Peter won't be the only one wearing boxing gloves! J

Repuerescere - curse, causes recipient to believe that he/she is five years old. Nyaah, nyaah. J

Fellatifalsus - curse, causes recipient to experience sensations associated with oral sex.

I suggest we try this one on the Head Boy during his end of year speech. R

Why wait, I suggest we try it out on J next time he's talking to Lily. P

You can try it out on me now if you like. S

Oh, dear, that didn't go quite as planned did it. J

No, I think I got the declensions the wrong way round. Will S be all right? R

Just checked, he's cleaning his teeth for the eighth time! J

You know, I reckon anyone could do these spells.

Oh, and James loves Lily!!

No I don't!

That's not what you said last night - we HEARD you!!

Slade rocks!

It's 'slew' you moron, and why would you want to kill rocks anyway?

There once was a young man called Pete

Who was famous for having big feet

When asked was it true

That his(illegible due to heavy scribbling

In purple ink)plied "No, it's small but quite sweet."

The sheet ends with more drawings, this time of a rather lewd nature involving what look like broomsticks.

...........................................................................

George chuckled, twirling the length of wood between his fingers and wondering who on earth were the J, the P, the S, and the R who had spent so much time on such a crazy endeavour. He had quite a clear mental picture of them - a group of schoolboys, he envisioned, passing the sheet back and forth under the table during lessons to share the fruits of their research. Except, of course, that none of it was true.

He sighed and laid the sheets on his blotter, signed them, folded them into an envelope and taped it securely to the outside of the large box containing the Principia. He was just about to call down to the post room, when a loud cough just behind him alerted him to trouble.

"Haven't you finished that yet, Moran," senior conservator Chisholm snapped. "We don't pay you to waste your time on pointless research, you know. Income generation is the watchword nowadays. So put that - that - silly stick down and get on with it!"

George scowled as he watched his head of department stalk away. How he wished that some of the things on the sheet were possible. Screwing his face up into an evil expression totally at odds with his normal appearance he poked the tip of the willow lath at Chisholm's back.

"Pedus concinne," he murmured in perfect Latin and then watched in utter disbelief as Chisholm minced across the room and into the laboratory. Hastily, he checked the sheet then pointed the stick towards one of his co-workers. Samantha, tall, blonde and aristocratic, had made it perfectly clear that she was not prepared to mix with menials, even to the extent of refusing to make the occasional coffee, though she was quite happy to accept one if George was the one to make the brew.

"Tantum Calceus," he murmured and gave a blissful smile as she squealed, hands moving frantically, and bolted for the Ladies.

Life had suddenly improved beyond all belief.