The best science is MAD SCIENCE (Open scene)

[brainy5]

Most of the classrooms in this alleged school seemed to be empty. This suited Brainiac Five perfectly well, because it meant he could take one over for his own purposes. Which did not, at the moment, include Legion business, but had involved several angry notes on chalkboards like 'PHYSICS DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT' and 'MY SOUL FOR A FUNCTIONING

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[fiercefluffy]

Octavian, too, spent some time exploring. Caution tempered his curiosity, so that he chose a deliberate tactical approach to exploration. He had mapped out parts of the castle, in a vague outline. Next was a more systematic survey of each part, one by one. This part seemed mostly abandoned.

The moving staircases and other such anomalies of Hogwarts had been no small cause of frustration. He was not certain he had even seen this particular corridor before. He thought a staircase must have blocked it from his view, a staircase no longer so positioned.

The person inside was unlike any person he had yet met. Hogwarts was full of rarities and exotic races. Octavian wondered what Pullo would say, and whether Pullo had already met this man. He ought to debrief his old friend, really, in a more attentive way than he'd done at his Sorting. He had been so distracted (not to say distraught) by the things he'd found in the library, he had not given as much thought to other matters as he should.

The green-faced youth looked not immediately dangerous. Octavian approached with open empty hands, a clear expression of neutrality and lack of intent to harm. "Pardon the interruption. I am Octavian. What is this room's purpose?"

[brainy5]

"Brainiac Five. Pleased to meet you." It was polite to return introductions, after all. And this Octavian was direct, or seemed to be, which was a bonus in Brainy's book - he asked questions without prefacing it with roundabout queries or backwards guesses. "This is an abandoned classroom, which I have appropriated for use as a personal laboratory. Currently I'm engaged in an effort to construct a transmatter gate using primitive - which is to say magical - materials and methods."

[fiercefluffy]

To Octavian's ear, Brainiac Five was no less likely a name than many of the modern names he'd heard. He was, after all, in benighted Britain.

Octavian often found use for roundabout queries, but saw no need to weary himself with them when they were not necessary. As for backwards guesses, those he avoided scrupulously, as best he could. Backwardness was antithetical to Octavian.

He saw nothing amiss with the appropriation of empty rooms. "For what purpose do you seek to construct a 'transmatter gate'?" The question of what transmatter might be could wait.

[brainy5]

That was... all right, Ultra Boy might ask a question like that, so Brainy tried to restrict his blank 'are you serious' staring to about a second's duration. "A functioning transmatter gate would allow me to return to my dimensional and temporal frame at will. I suppose it would also allow travel in this dimensional frame, as well."

[fiercefluffy]

Oh, Octavian was serious as a heart attack. "I have never heard of transmatter or a transmatter gate. It seems to me a thing more useful than most. I don't suppose they could be made very large, for the transport of troops?"

[brainy5]

"I don't see why not. The power source required would be massive, but that's less of a problem than most people seem to think it is." Zero-point energy, a matter/antimatter drive - the possibilities were nearly endless.

"'Transmatter' is a portmanteau of 'transport' and 'matter'. The systems were originally developed for the inexpensive and rapid transit of good from one planet to another within the UP network, but with some minor frequency alterations they can function as transportation for sentient beings. With only minor and infrequent incidents." Those minor incidents were severe enough that most sentients still preferred threespace transports, but you couldn't have everything, and Brainy was sure he could eliminate the problem anyway.

[fiercefluffy]

Minor. Infrequent. These might or might not be true assessments. Octavian could not afford the loss of legions. "With such a device available," he noted, "expenditure on building and maintenance of roads would be greatly reduced, at the very least."

What? He had an eye for urban planning!

[brainy5]

"The system is generally cost-prohibitive when applied to simple terrestrial travel. Interplanetary distances," and hopefully intertemporal and interdimensional distances, "are assumed to be the norm. You would be better served looking into light flyers or directed-antigrav sleds to eliminate the cost of road building and maintenance."