Min was trying to play it cool. As much as she wanted to go all fangirl the second she saw the badge, she was not about to freak out and make a babbling idiot of herself-she was just going to sit here very calmly until the panel started, keep her eyes on her phone, and only later run up to her friends and shout, "OMG I was actually in line right freaking next to Dumbledoreen! For real! No, I didn't ask her for her autograph or anything. She probably gets that all the time. I wanted to let her enjoy the convention, you know?"
That was totally what Min was going to do. Okay, maybe the little occasional glance out of the corner of her eye, because this was literally the first and probably only chance she was ever going to have to see what the woman who made her favorite fan videos looked like in person, but...not to gawk. That would be weird. Just a glance or two, noticing how cool she looked in her costume-it was a really amazing Hermione, matching the 'Cursed Child' outfit right down to the hairstyle. Dumbledoreen looked a little younger than Noma Dumezweni, though. And a lot younger than Min had always imagined. But you could never judge anyone by their screen name.
Min looked away, suddenly paranoid about staring too long. She was keeping it cool, she told herself. She was an experienced con-goer, she'd met celebrities before. She was just going to chill, not gush about how awesome the 'Harry Potter Goes to Xavier's School' mashup was, not talk about the video that Min was working on that was going to be her YouTube debut, not describe herself as Dumbledoreen's biggest fan, not-
"Nice Cho," Dumbledoreen said, giving Min a warm smile. "Is the wand homemade?"
"Omigod you're Dumbledoreen!" Min blurted out, suddenly very grateful that her olive skin hid most of her blush. "Um...sorry. You probably get that all the time. Um. No. It's not. Homemade, that is."
The other woman chuckled. "Honestly, I think this is the first time anyone's recognized my name in three years of conventions. I usually have to spend about five minutes explaining what I do at the beginning of every panel I'm on."
Min's eyes widened. "No way! You do the best HP videos, everyone I know agrees! I loved the one where Harry winds up on the TARDIS, and he freaks out because he thinks it's Barty Crouch but-" She clamped her mouth shut, forcibly reminding herself not to gush. "I'm a big fan-I mean, not your biggest fan, I'm sure everybody thinks they're your biggest fan. But I'm really a very big fan, um, Dum-um, Miss-"
"Just call me Doreen," the other woman said. "We'll both feel less silly. And you really did do a great job on the costume-you even got the hair right!"
"Thanks," Min said, suddenly a little too shy to meet Doreen's gaze. "I always liked Cho as a kid-I mean, she's probably Chinese, not Korean, but you probably know what it's like. When you're looking to see yourself in stories, you take what you can get."
"Or you make your own," Doreen said, thankfully not sounding irritated by Min's comment. "I think that's why I make so many mashup videos-I feel like I need to get inside them, you know? Really make them my stories too." She chuckled. "Well, that and I'd probably go nuts if I didn't. My day job isn't exactly what you'd call creative."
"Oh?" Min tried not to act interested, but it was hard not to wonder. None of the videos posted under 'Dumbledoreen' were vlogs, or even had voiceovers that weren't lifted from other sources. Even her avatar was just Squirrel Girl with a big bushy beard photoshopped onto the face. The only thing she ever posted to Twitter was an announcement whenever she posted something new. Sitting next to her, Min was suddenly dying of curiosity.
"Well, since you're a...very big fan," Doreen said, a sly grin crossing her features, "I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to let you know. I'm involved in video production for-" Just then, there was a sudden commotion as the line began to move. Min tried very hard not to scream in frustration as she scrambled to pick up her things.
"I tell you what," Doreen said, hooking her arm in Min's, "why don't you sit next to me during the panel? And after we're done, if you don't have anywhere else to be, we can find somewhere private and I can tell you a little bit more about my work."
*****
An hour of behind-the-scenes anecdotes from Jamie Waylett and Joshua Herdman later, Min found herself heading up the elevator back to her idol's hotel room to see her computer. She wiped her palms on her robes, trying not to freak out about how suddenly amazing this convention was becoming. She felt starstruck-literally, as though the sudden turn of events had smacked her on the head and left her a little bit dazed.
When they got into the room, Doreen gestured to a laptop sitting on the hotel desk. "There she is, my own personal Pensieve. I don't normally do much editing while I'm at a con, but technically I'm on call this weekend for my day job, so I had to bring a portable suite with me. Thankfully, I don't have to actually record anything-it'd be murder trying to soundproof things with so many parties outside."
Min wanted to take a look at the editing software Doreen used-she'd mostly been working with Filmora, and it sounded like Doreen had something expensive and top of the line and it would be so awesome just to get to play with it for a few minutes-but there was that tease again, hinting at a big exciting secret, and Min couldn't resist it twice. "So what do you do for your day job?" she asked, trying to sound casual.
"Believe it or not," Doreen said, taking off her outer robes and sloughing them onto a nearby chair, "I work for the CIA." She was grinning like it was a private joke, and Min wondered briefly if it was actually for some company that had the same initials as the government one...but then Doreen went on. "It's mostly making videos with hidden coded transmissions, for our sleeper agents in the field. Not that I get to know what the codes are, or where the videos go, or who sees them-I'm just involved on the technical end. It's incredibly boring. So I use the technology to make Harry Potter mashups in my spare time."
Min found her eyes shifting back and forth across the room, looking for...hidden microphones? Secret cameras? She didn't even know, really. It just seemed weird that someone would invite her up to their hotel room and then suddenly drop classified information on them. "Should you be...telling me this?" she asked, a touch of anxiety in her voice.
"I don't see any reason why not," Doreen said, flopping down onto the bed. "I'm not telling you what any of the videos are, or the methods we use to make them, and besides." She grinned a disconcertingly wide smile. "You're a very big fan."
This had to be a joke, Min decided. Doreen was teasing her, making up some line of BS so that Min would go back and tell all her friends about how Dumbledoreen wasn't just a cool video maker, she was actually a spy and everything! And nobody would believe her, because it was totally unbelievable because spies didn't invite cosplayers up to their hotel room to chat about their secret spy messages and-
"You have watched all my videos, haven't you?" Doreen asked, breaking into Min's train of thought. "I mean, if you are a very big fan, I expect you would have."
"Um, yeah," Min said, determined not to make this any weirder than it already was. She was just going to keep cool, answer the questions, stick to talking about editing and not get confrontational about stuff. Doreen could pretend to be a secret agent if she wanted, it wasn't like her videos became less good, right? "Five or six times, some of them. I'm trying to learn how it's done myself, so I'll watch some of the really long ones over and over."
"That's perfect!" Doreen said, almost breaking into giggles. "In that case..." She pulled her wand free from its belt and pointed it at Min. She gave it a tiny swish and flick, and intoned, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." And suddenly everything changed.
Min felt it inside her brain, like there was a whole secret tracery of hidden thoughts that slowly revealed themselves, each one intricately wound around her normal waking mind. She suddenly knew things without knowing how she knew them, each one a deep and unshakable truth that felt as solid and real to her as gravity. She looked at Doreen's wand and then her own, seeing them in an impossible new light. "I...what just happened?" she whispered, half in awe.
"Well," Doreen said, "you know how I mentioned that my job involves making coded transmissions for sleeper agents? What I didn't mention was that most of those sleeper agents don't know they're sleeper agents. I make, well...brainwashing videos. Videos with hidden, subliminal instructions that activate on the use of a key word or phrase from someone the recipient recognizes as authorized. It's all very top secret stuff, and probably a lot more boring than you'd imagine...but that's exactly the problem. It's not a good idea to hand technology like that to someone who gets bored easily."