DON'T TAKE NO SORCERY, pt 1
This is a ridiculous fic that I wrote. It is a Glee/AVPM crossover. You may have seen parts of it on Tumblr already. It is semi-cracky and not for everyone. If you like Kurt/Blaine and Samcedes and the concept of Darren Criss making out with himself it's probably for you, though.
It is also so long it won't fit into one post. So.
"So man, I gotta tell you, this has totally been the best summer ever."
"I know, right?" Ron grinned at his best friend as they thundered side-by-side down the stairs to his room in the basement. It had been the best summer ever. They'd finally talked Harry's dumbass Muggle family into letting him come spend most of July and August at the Weasleys' house, and he and Harry had been broing it up in his room the whole time, feasting on snacks and practicing all the underage magic they could possibly get away with. Hermione had finally let him get to third base, and that had been glorious. If he just didn't think too hard about how Ginny and Harry had probably done the exact same thing two floors above where they were sitting right now - or the mountain of summer homework they'd all been procrastinating on that he'd probably just make Hermione do for him on the train - Ron couldn't imagine a way the summer could have gone any better, that's for sure.
"I can't believe I went three years without knowing there were wizard video games. How cool is that?" They took their spots on Ron's grungy old sofa - the same spots they'd been sitting in most of the summer, now perfectly comfort-conformed to their butts, Harry on the right and Ron on the left because he was always player 1, duh - and slotted their wands tip-first into the controller pods for Ultima Quidditch 2012, the miniature 3-D figures coming to life in their enclosed case on the other side of the room.
"It's way cooler than Muggle games, that's for sure. You're using screens, what's up with that?"
"Hey, I've been playing Muggle games my whole life before this and I'm still gonna kick your ass, Weasley."
"In your Squirt-flavored dreams," Ron shot back. "I've got five older brothers and I still have the high score on this thing."
"Not for long!"
Ron scowled at Harry and gripped his wand-joystick, bracing himself for yet another of their crazy Quidditch deathmatches, but no sooner had he sent the orange team's best Chaser up to the faceoff with Harry's when another set of footsteps - a different, higher pitch but no less thunderous - tore down the stairs and stopped at the landing, scowling down at them.
"Ro-onnn - "
"Dammit, stupid sister! Pause," he hissed softly to the game-box, the spell freezing the tiny Quidditch men inside. He whirled around to glare at her. Ginny's lip quivered under his gaze, and then she shifted to glare at Harry. Ron glanced back over at Harry and saw him making a pained expression, and eventually he looked over and glared at Ron.
(This kept happening. Ron kind of wished someone had told him that being best friends with your sister's boyfriend kind of sucked sometimes.)
He sighed. "Yes, Ginny, what do you want?" he tried again, trying to be nice but still about two-thirds as annoyed as before.
"Mom says you guys have to go out and get stuff for dinner tonight."
"What? How come?"
"She said - " Ginny put on a pretty terrifyingly good impression of their mother. "It's Harry and Hermione's last night in the house and I'm gonna look like a monkey's ass if I don't have some kinda good food on the table for them to remember me by. She's doing something really fancy and doesn't have the right ingredients and wants you to go into Diagon Alley."
"Wait, so she wants to cook me an awesome dinner and I have to go buy all the stuff for it?" Harry said. "That seems kinda lame."
Ginny rolled her eyes. "I don't think she trusts Ron with the whole list - "
"Hang on, I can totally buy groceries by myself!"
"Cool, then uhhh, you do it, and I'm gonna be here reading your Warrior Wizard comic books and drinking the last of the Squirt, no big deal."
"You can't take those out of the packaging!" Ron yelled for probably the millionth time, because seriously? "No, you're coming with me."
"Seriously? I was totally kidding, I'd probably just end up making out with Ginny the whole time you were gone." He winked at her where she still stood at the bottom of the stairs. "Best summer ever."
"No. No. You're both coming with me." He lowered his voice to growl at Harry. "You are not getting more action than I do in my own damn house."
"Okay, okay, fine, jeez. Cockblock."
"Ronald Weasley!" his mom shouted from upstairs, and Ginny started wringing her hands together. "We better hurry, I think she's getting - antsy."
"Go upstairs and get the fireplace ready and we'll meet you in a second," said Ron, already crossing to his dresser to get a different shirt (one that was "nice enough to wear out in public" or Hermione would talk his ear off again) and some socks and his sneakers. Harry dug through his trunk for similar, and stopped for a moment to clean some specks off his glasses. When they were "presentable" enough they joined Ginny up by the fireplace.
"I hate using the Floo in the summer," said Ron. "It's already like ninenty degrees and then you have to light a fire just to get anywhere."
"Yeah, magic is awesome but sometimes it's pretty dumb," said Harry. "Oh well. Maybe we can stop off and get some ice cream at Fortescue's while we're down there? I think they've got one that has like, Pop Rocks on it."
"Harry Potter, don't you dare spoil your supper!" Mrs. Weasley shouted from the kitchen. "You're not getting anything that isn't on that list, you hear me?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Harry, scuffing at his ankle with the toe of his other shoe.
Ron rolled his eyes, and was about to apologize to Harry for his mom being so obnoxious, when suddenly Hermione's stupid cat shot out of freaking nowhere and collided with his left shin. Ron screamed and knocked into Ginny, who nearly fell into the fireplace before it was ready. While she was trying to snuff out the fire on the tail ends of the hair that had fallen over her right shoulder, Ron cast a look into the next room over, searching for his girlfriend.
"Hermione!" he yelled. "Come get your stupid cat, will you?"
"Sorry!" she responded, and he heard some scuffling as she came running toward them - but she froze when she was still two steps behind the sofa.
"Ron, what are you doing?"
"We're going to Diagon Alley so Mom can make a fancy dinner tonight!" said Ginny, doling out Floo powder to Harry and then to Ron. "I love when she makes new stuff," she added in a lower voice, glancing back toward the kitchen, "it's a nice change of pace from the same four or five - "
"Ginevra Weasley, unless you want to go to bed without dinner - "
"Yes Mom!!" she shrieked. She took a little Floo powder in her own hand and then nudged Ron with her elbow. "Come on, guys."
"Ron, you can't go in there!"
"Hermione, it's a magic fire, remember? I'm not gonna burn anything. That was just the one time."
"No, Ron, don't - " She stumbled hastily over to him. "The Floo network is supposed to be down in several broad areas for major repairs today! There's no telling what could - "
"Ahh, c'mon, Hermz," said Harry. "I'm sure if there were something wrong with our stretch of the Floo, someone would've said something, in like, a public service announcement or some dumb shit like that. Let's go, I really wanna get back and finish that Ultima Quidditch match before dinner - "
"Harry, no!" said Hermione, flinging her arms across them both. Ron managed to catch himself, but it sent Harry reeling straight into Ginny, who tripped into the side of the mantle and used it to lever herself back upright. But that bumped her right back into Harry, who scuffed the heel of his shoe against the edge of the fireplace and tumbled backward into the fire, choking as he lost some of his wind.
"D - uh - on A...ley," he managed, the rest of his words wracked with coughs from the fire as he was whisked away.
Ron realized, like, way too late that Harry had grabbed onto the hem of his T-shirt and still had a grip on it as he fell.
Desperate, Ron reached out to Hermione and Ginny, grabbing one cozy around the waist and the other by the edge of her hair (and realizing, unfortunately, that he'd done it the wrong way around) and barely managing to shout out some directions of his own as all three of them - and Ginny's way, way too big handful of Floo powder - crashed into the back of the hearth too.
He really hoped that sounded enough like Diagon Alley, anyway.
They whirled miserably fast through the torrents of green flames, careening this way and that like they were backward on a roller coaster (or well, upside-down in Hermione's case) and slamming into the walls of the Floo tunnels in a way that just barely managed to not be painful. He had Ginny's elbow lodged hard in his stomach and Hermione's face buried in his armpit and this was so, like, the stupidest way to travel ever. Harry was right. Then, as if the day hadn't gone shitty enough already, they passed through a section of tunnel that merged and yet another bony, annoying body slammed straight into Ron and Hermione's ribs. Ron opened his mouth to scream what the hell but the sounds were lost in the dark green-tinged vortex of the Floo. (Seriously, it was like the freaking Matrix in here.)
They finally shot out the other end onto a dank concrete floor, with Ron on the bottom of the four-person dogpile, staring at a pair of far-too-shiny reptile-skin shoes as he hauled himself to a kneeling position and tried to catch his breath. And then - shit. He knew those shoes.
"Draco!" Ginny squealed, tripping past him to wrap Malfoy in a hug while Hermione reached down and helped him stand. Ron took her hand without looking - he was still glaring over at the other two. Ginny being Draco's "friend" was annoying.
"Malfoy, what are you doing here?" he said. "How did you - "
"Granger. Weasley." He dusted off some non-existent soot from the shoulder of his shirt and straightened the lapel of his vest. "I suppose this is all your fault, then."
"My fault?" shouted Ron. "How are you already blaming - "
"Well, Ron, he has a point," said Hermione. "I did tell you not to take the Floo network today, there's no telling what could have happened now because you didn't listen to me - "
"Dammit, Hermione, you're supposed to be on my - "
"Guys," said Ginny, suddenly. "Where's Harry?"
Ron stopped. Hermione stopped. Draco stopped. They all kind of looked around, at the dim and grungy environment they'd Flooed into - a thick furnace, barely any fire burning in it at all, just some coals tinged with green, and a messy, dusty basement space that looked like it was being used for storage.
"And where are we?"
Ron raised his wand from his pocket and told it Lumos before stepping cautiously forward, craning his head ahead of the rest of his body to peer around and look. Malfoy kept muttering about how it was his fault, but Ron waved his other hand back at him. "Shut up for a second, okay?" He could hear a faint sound coming from somewhere - something like people, milling around like normal. Maybe they'd just ended up in some boiler room by accident, and they'd show up in regular Diagon Alley if they could just -
"Aha! Guys, there's stairs over here, come on!" Hermione rushed over right behind him, followed by Ginny and, complaining the whole time like a bitch, Draco. They climbed the stairs and unlocked the door - Hermione gave it a quick Alohomora and stepped out into...
A hallway?
A really busy, squeaky hallway, with a bunch of kids their own age running everywhere, and some obnoxiously bright tiled floors and rows of metal lockers everywhere and oh, shit, a really tall really angry woman with short hair and a bright green track suit charging straight at them.
"What on Pat Sajak's green earth were you weirdos doing down in the boiler room?" she barked at them. Ron and Ginny froze - Hermione was the one who was finally able to speak.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, um, we're just - "
"Lost on your way to the choir room? I should have figured. Kids as weird as you can't belong to anyone but Schuester. Although you two are miserably ginger enough that I guess you could also pass for the black sheep of the Pillsbury family. Come on, back to where you belong, freak show."
As she rushed them along down the hallway, long arms not taking no for an answer, Malfoy finally managed to find his voice, too. "This is fairly preposterous, you know," he told her.
"On the contrary, I think it's preposterously fair."
"I'm just saying, I'd watch it if I were you. My father is capable of a lot of things in this - "
"Listen, Fontleroy, unless your father has a higher authority clearance than I do in the Ohio public school system - which is impossible, because I was recently granted a special level of power completely specific to the one and only Sue Sylvester that gives me governing power over just about every other body in the system at will - then I don't think he can do tiddlywinks to me." She came to a stop with her frog-marching in front of a shoddy wooden door, threw it open and shoved them inside. "And stay there. I've got to have a talk with William about being a better zookeeper."
The door slammed right in Ron's face and he took a couple of steps back, knocking shoulders with Hermione and then turning around to face the room they were in. It had a wide two-level arc of seats across the back, with high windows on the curved wall and more of the weird squeaky tile floors. Off to their left was a glossy black piano and beyond that was a big white board...thing with red and green marks left over little parts of it, writing that Ron couldn't read from where they stood. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before, and that kind of sucked. He reached out and took Hermione's hand and was super-relieved when she grabbed it back and squeezed, just as scared as he was, even as he could see the look on her face that meant the weird well-oiled gears of her brain were nocking into each other at a mile a minute trying to puzzle things out through the fear. To her right, Malfoy had his arms folded across his chest and was kind of curling in on himself.
Only Ginny was bold enough to take a couple steps out into the open space in the center of the room, turning slowly to take it all in. She stopped when she'd gone far enough around that she was standing facing them, and bit her bottom lip.
"So um, again," she murmured, "where are we?"
-xxx-
Harry hit the hearth hard on his knees and coughed furiously, clutching one hand to his chest to try and stabilize because, like, people always did that in the movies for some reason. He'd lost his glasses somewhere along the line and he groped around for them, landing on the frames after four or five blind grabs and lifting them up to his face. One of the lenses had a slim crack straight from top to bottom just to the left of center. Shit.
When he finally regained his bearings he stood up, trying to take in his surroundings. He definitely wasn't in Diagon Alley, that's for sure. He wasn't in Knockturn Alley or Seckshoe Alley like he'd landed when he'd screwed up before, either. He appeared to be standing in a fireplace set into the middle of the wall of a long, broad hallway, with grand decor and bright, shining polished floors. There were high windows on the wall across from him and soft bustles of noise coming from way down to his left. Figuring that was the best place to start to get a little better oriented, Harry brushed as much of the Floo soot off his clothes as he could, ran a hand through his wild hair, straightened his glasses, and turned to head in the direction of the sound.
No sooner had he set foot off the hearth and onto the slick floor than he felt a weird, soft-gross lethargy sink into his limbs, accompanied by a vague molasses-y spinning in his head. The next step he took his leg moved right down the path his brain was telling it to but at a slug's pace, pressing through the air like it had somehow become denser, even as his eyes scanned around and showed that nothing had changed. It was one of the most disorienting things Harry had ever experienced - it was like his entire life was suddenly in slow motion.
He was instantly suspicious of any unknown magic and whirled as fast as he could to jump back onto the hearth and into what he assumed was relative safety. The backward movement took just as long, and by the time he was free from the field of the spell his momentum was so out of control that he fell back to his knees again.
"What the hell?" Harry whispered. Where was he?
He tested the figurative waters of the hall again, but to the same results: slo-mo, the instant he stepped off the hearth. Arms, legs, voice, anything. The second return to the hearth was a little more graceful. Harry frowned at the edge of where the floor changed and drew out his wand from his pocket, thankful it hadn't cracked in the Floo fiasco.
"Finite Incantatum," he said pointedly to the void of the hallway, jabbing his wand outward. But even the spell itself was affected - when the pulse of yellow light hit the invisible barrier of the shift, it slowed and stuttered, flowing through the too-dense air like a pond rippling (in slow motion, of course. What the hell).
Harry frowned harder, scratching at the mess of his hair again. This hallway was ridiculous, but with the Floo down and his friends nowhere in sight, he was going to have to press through it to get off the island of the hearth sooner or later. Might as well bite the bullet and take the plunge and...some other metaphor. It was his only means of escape.
Pocketing his wand and steeling his resolve, Harry took the heavy, hesitant step he'd need to take to get off the hearth and back into the hallway. As soon as both feet were on the glossy floor the effect took over, slowing every movement that Harry made, his legs strange and buckling, his arms uncertain. It was incredibly hard to walk like this with the sensation of the magic clinging like something sticky and gross all over his skin and clothes and hair. He closed his eyes for a quick moment that lasted way too long and tried to do a Hermione. How did you overcome a weird obstacle when the solution that made actual sense became impossible? He figured the best option was probably to just think about it as little as he could. If he kept dwelling on how weird it was his body would never catch up, but if he blanked his mind and made himself just stroll down the hallway like he wasn't moving a third as fast as usual then maybe his body would just default to something normal rather than something strained and freaking annoying.
With this in mind, or not in mind, or whatever, Harry plodded his way to the end of the hallway until it hit a T-intersection and he tumbled back into real-time again - more gracefully than the first time but unfortunately less gracefully than the second. At least no one was around to see him, and when he finally caught himself and straightened up, Harry was given his first real chance to examine his new surroundings unhindered.
It was more glossy floors and more high, grandiose ceilings, hallways that were silent and empty but clearly meant to withstand heavy traffic. The windows here were broader and letting in thick yellow sunlight from outside, overlooking a small and lushly green courtyard area surrounded by more walls of the building, or maybe other buildings. In fact, the more Harry looked at it, the more it really kind of started to look like...
And then he saw it. On a broad otherwise-open space of wall a little to his left was an enormous tapestry...banner...thing, bearing in pretentious fancy script the words Dalton Academy.
"It's a school," Harry murmured to himself. This was not Diagon Alley, but Dalton Academy, wherever that was. Harry could even kind of see how a malfunctioning Floo combined with his own stuttering voice could have gotten the words confused. So that was one layer of "totally fucking weird" peeled back: he had a name for this place, and he kind of knew how he'd gotten here. Maybe if he could find another fireplace that wasn't malfunctioning, or someone to make a Portkey for him or something, he could get back to the Weasleys' house and start over on working to find his friends from there. He might even get out of this place unnoticed, which would make it way easier to -
Oh.
Well, no.
Because suddenly a large, loud bell was chiming from somewhere else on the campus grounds, and from doors on either side of Harry, students in blue-blazered uniforms started pouring out, milling and laughing and echoing in the vast hallways. They jostled into him from all sides as they began to pass him, spinning him around, disorienting him, until one guy - about half a head taller than Harry (a little less with the hair, okay) with blond bangs spilling down into his eyes, stopped and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Whoa, Blaine? You really grew your hair over the summer!"
"What?" said Harry. "No, whah - my name's not - " He dropped one eyebrow at this guy. "Do you seriously not recognize me?"
"You're - not Blaine?"
"No! What kind of name is that?" Harry tried again, being a little more obvious this time. He tipped his glasses down his nose a bit and brushed his hair back from his forehead so that it framed his scar perfectly. "Now do you recognize me?"
The blond guy frowned kind of pitifully. "Nah, dude. I'm kind of terrible with names and faces, sorry...should I?"
"Well, I just figured most people kind of knew Harry Potter when they saw him."
At this the guy actually laughed - full-on, loud, drawing the attention of some of the other guys bustling through the hallway. "Man, that's a good one! But seriously, Blaine, a prank like this on the first day of school - "
"What's going on, Jeff?" Another student had come up beside the blond guy and tapped him on the elbow, trying to figure out what was going on in the commotion. Jeff spun to look down at him, a response on his lips, but it sputtered into nothingness when he saw who it was.
"But - isn't that - how can - what - oh, what..."
And Harry was tempted to agree. Because when he and the new guy finally made eye contact, it was practically like staring into a mirror.
(Well, a mirror with contact lenses, and no scar, and way shorter way grosser-looking hair, and who had maybe shaved a little closer than Harry had that morning...but still.)
-xxx-
Hermione scanned the room through narrowed eyes, trying to make the pieces fit, trying to concentrate.
"Can you believe the decor of this place? What kind of absurd pattern is that on the wall?"
"Oh wow, Malfoy, I never would've taken you for the interior decorating type."
They obviously weren't anywhere near Diagon Alley. She was fairly certain this was someplace far, far away from the things they were familiar with - and she was beginning to think this was probably a Muggle place, too. There was a television on a rolling cart - a big amp for an electric guitar or a bass -
"Oh sod off, Weasley. Just because your mess of a house is so small that you don't even have room for any kind of design motif to speak of, doesn't mean the rest of us have to settle for such squalor. You could do with learning to appreciate the finer things in life."
"Draco, have you ever even been to our house before? It's actually kinda nice!"
She kept scanning, but there wasn't much more she could get from visuals alone, not from where she was standing. With tentative steps, she hunted around for a calendar, photographs, anything, and the gears in her brain kept turning, grinding against each other...
"Oh, so you're inviting him to our house now? Damnit, sister - "
"I'm just saying he shouldn't knock it before he's tried it! I know you're used to like, your big fancy mansion and stuff, but there's something so warm about - "
"Are you implying Malfoy Manor is cold?"
...like her teeth.
"Guys can you just shut up for a second??" Hermione finally screamed, arms straightening ramrod-stiff as her fists clenched down against the sides of her skirt.
"Whoa, whoa," said Ron faintly, crossing over to her as he finally snapped out of it, thank god. "Babe, are you - "
"Sorry," she said, realizing suddenly that it was true. "It's just - I hate when things go wrong like this. After the whole Umbridge thing and then the whole Voldemort thing and just...I just want to go through a year of school where everything goes normal for a change." She leaned into his hand on her shoulder. "Every time something weird starts to happen it just kind of freaks me out."
"No, I totally get that," said Ginny, stepping over to her too. Draco huffed by the door, his arms crossed over his chest. "It's like all the stuff that's stupid and bad happens to us, huh?" Her giggle was forced, but it was appreciated nonetheless, and Hermione smiled.
"Good thing we've got practice then, I guess." She swept her hands through her hair, making like she was going to pull it back but then just dropping it. "Okay. I just. I think I've almost got this figured out. We were headed from the Burrow to Diagon Alley...but then... - yes!" It was totally freaking stupid, but it made sense! Geez, and if that's what had happened, the Floo network really needed to improve the layout of their infrastructure.
"Yes what?" asked Draco, and Ron and Ginny kind of nodded in agreement.
Oh, right. She was going to have to explain it to them. That was always the hard part.
"Okay. Um." Hermione looked around to get her bearings and her eyes lighted on the dry erase board off to the lefthand side of the room. "Oh! Okay. So - "
"Hermione, are you sure?" Ginny whispered to her as they crossed to the board. "You know you can't - "
"Just give me a second," she said, "how bad could it be?" Hermione cleared her throat. "Okay. So, so here's where we started..." She drew a small circle about eye-level with Ron, off to one side. "And then this must be where Malfoy started." She drew a second circle, parallel. Sort of.
"My grandmother's house," said Draco. "Dying to get out of there, crazy old harpie, but if this is the alternative...."
"Can you please just keep your two Knuts to yourself for a second?" said Ron, rolling his eyes.
Hermione continued with her diagram. "So we took the Floo, but it misrouted us...um, this way." She drew an arc, descending down from the circle that represented the Burrow and belling out, curving back in to a spot...somewhat centered between the two circles, but further down. "And then Malfoy, it must have sent you like - like this." She made another arc that mirrored the first, which intersected with it higher up, swept past it, and then rejoined it in the same place at the bottom, to make a sort of almond shape. Wow, this was actually turning out pretty good!
But Ron snorted. "Uh. Heheh, sure, okay."
"What?" said Hermione.
"Oh no, it's, no, keep going." He fluttered his hand at her but then set it back on his chin and sniggered softly into it a couple more times before calming down.
"Um...yeah, see! So here's where we hit you, Malfoy - " she tapped the marker against and around the place where the arcs intersected for the first time. "From the Floo misroute. Then around here - " She drew a bunch of smaller almond shapes inside the bigger one, going over her lines again and again, and it got a little messy but she was trying to make a point - "somewhere in here was where we lost Harry."
"Oh!" gasped Ginny, "oh...oh. Heehee."
"Yes, exactly! And then the spot at the bottom is where we are now - wherever that is. It's a Muggle school, definitely, but I don't know where..."
But now all three of them were laughing, Ginny pressing her face hard into Draco's shoulder and Ron scratching at the back of his head, torn somewher between embarrassed and hysterical. Hermione felt her enthusiasm for working out the problem deflate out of her, and her shoulders slumped as she turned from them back to her drawing. It wasn't that bad, was it? It was supposed to be a diagram, a representation, not an actual illustration of anything. What could it possibly look like other than -
"Whoa, okay Frankenberry, if you want to come join my team I guess there's no stopping you but you're really gonna need to understand that the little ladymuffin between your legs does not look like - wait a minute, you're not Rachel. Who are you and why are you drawing a taco on our whiteboard?"
Ron howled with laughter and Hermione blanched as the realization sank over her. Oh, oh no, did her helpful graphic really look like - like someone's woman parts?
She was suddenly very defensive and nearly had to shout to be heard over Ginny's giggling. "Well, who are you?" she said, staring down the girl who'd just walked through the door.
"Santana Lopez, obviously...." She was eyeing them up and down, slowly, but Hermione's brain had started going a mile a minute again. Lopez?
"Lopez, Lo - wait a second!" She snapped her fingers and rounded on Draco, scowling. "Aren't the Lopezes related to the Malfoy family?"
At this Ron sobered up, laying his hand on her shoulder again. "Um, babe," he whispered, "we talked about this? No breaking the fourth wall?"
Hermione winced. "Right - sorry..." She turned back to the dark-haired girl, who was crossing from the doorway to sit in one of the chairs on the risers at the back of the room. "San - Santana?"
"Yeah," she said hesitantly - "how have you not heard of me? Resident queer bitch extraordinaire?" She waved her hand dismissively. "Hummel might try to tell you that's him, but he's lying, I'm definitely numero uno. You can't cancel out an entire childhood in Lima Heights Adjacent with like, half a semester at gay Hogwarts."
Now Ginny and Draco froze, too, and as one all four of them seemed to give her the same sort of happy-desperate, disbelieving look.
"Ho...Hogwarts?" Hermione said faintly.
But that was when all the other people started bustling into the room, and things began to get too crazy for a real answer.
-xxx-
"But already? On the first day back?"
Tina sighed and shook her head. "I don't know why you're even surprised any more. They're getting out everything they've wanted to do all summer, it just stands to reason - "
"Don't these behemoths have something better to do with their lives?" Kurt grumbled. "It's like telling the same joke over and over again at every party and expecting people to still laugh."
Mercedes took the paper towel from him and gently pushed him away. "Talk and walk," she said. "I can redo my makeup in the choir room but we're going to be late." She did her best to clean the artificial grape gunk out of her ear, and then started in on the stuff that was still sticking to her eyelids. She wouldn't even be mad, but this was a brand new weave she'd just had put in, in time to look fabulous for the first day of school. If it came out of this a hot worse-for-wear mess she was probably going to take the nearest opportunity to knock Azimio Adams in the nuts.
And maybe Sam Evans, too.
Mercedes bit her lip. While Kurt and Tina strode along beside her debating the finer points of incorporating rain slickers and other slush-resistant items into fashionable back-to-school looks, she continued to wipe her face and tried not to be angry for other reasons altogether. They'd gone all summer keeping it hush-hush, but Mercedes had thought that meant they'd conquered the first, ugliest obstacle and were going to make it publicly official now that school was starting again. But Sam had told her, in no uncertain terms, that he'd really like for it to stay on the dee-ell even now. Even when having a star football-playing boyfriend was sure to protect her from the worst of the teasing and slushying. And it's not like she wanted to throw his reputation around like that, but - why was he even with her, if he didn't want to look out for her like that? If he didn't want everyone to know?
"Why?"
"Because there is a definite difference between a trenchcoat and an overcoat," said Kurt, rolling his eyes and answering a different question entirely. "Some people, I swear." But they were at the choir room now, their little triad merging with Sam, Mike, Artie, and Brittany, the latter two making the world's most awkward faces at each other every time they thought no one was looking. Mercedes tried her hardest not to do the same.
"Hey guys," she said, smiling weakly and holding up the grey-purple paper towel wad as a badge of honor.
"Ouch," said Artie. Mike held up a soggy towel from the locker room, stained green in a similar way.
"They were going for Brittany but I was too fast," he said, smiling morosely. "Green looks way better on me."
"That's a lie, I look awesome in every color," said Brittany. "I'm just on a diet."
"Sorry, baby," said Tina, pushing over to him and hugging him into a semi-indecent kiss. "Mmmm, it's my favorite flavor though."
"I know," said Mike with a wink.
"Sorry about you too, Mercedes," said Sam. He took the paper towel from her hand and wiped across by her hairline, getting a bit she must have missed.
"It's no big deal," she said, and tried not to sound upset.
"What are you guys all just standing around for?" squawked a voice from down the center hall of their T-intersection. "Can't you see we're wasting valuable rehearsal time? Get in there!" And Rachel Berry bustled past them, her yellow bow-encrusted sweater streaked faintly orange down the back, and barreled through the choir room door, leaving it swinging on its hinges. The rest of them followed through shaking their heads, Kurt already back to bitching about the slushie epidemic.
"And you!" he said, making a beeline for Santana. "Where were you? Where were the Bullywhips? Aren't you supposed to be preventing this kind of behavior, isn't that the whole point of your so-called organization? If I'm not mistaken, weren't you required by Sue Sylvester to recruit at least three more - "
"Sue Sylvester can't require me to do caca, Ladylips," said Santana, not even looking up from where she was filing her nails in the back row. "I'm a lone wolf."
"Ah-wooooo," howled Brittany faintly.
"Guys, is no one else concerned about the four other random people standing in our choir room that we've never seen before?" Artie deadpanned.
Because, yeah. Two redheaded kids, a guy and a girl, and then this other girl who looked a little bit like Rachel (better clothes, worse hair) and a really short blond guy were kind of hovering up by the whiteboard looking awkward as hell. Artie had already kind of wheeled over to them, and Mercedes followed after, looking curiously at them looking curiously at her.
She made up her mind fairly quickly. "Hi," she said, extending her hand for a shake, "I'm Mercedes. Are you guys here to audition for New Directions?"
"Um, not exactly," said the red-haired girl, though she did take Mercedes's hand and politely shake it back. "We're just kind of - here by mistake."
Rachel frowned dramatically. "Why am not surprised? Look, if you're not here to sing then you might as well just get out, I'm not concerned with - "
"Rachel, be nice!" said Mercedes. "One slushie and you get your granny panties in a bunch, I swear. Where were you guys trying to go? I know this school like the back of my hand, I can get you anywhere. Hopefully frozen-drink free."
"Well, uh, we were hoping - "
"Rachel got slushied?" Mercedes turned to the door to see Finn, Puck, and Lauren heading through it, Finn crossing immediately to Rachel to survey the damage - though hers seemed to have been much milder than Mike's or Mercedes's. "I can't believe those guys. This'll come out, right?" (Mercedes couldn't help but notice that he turned his gaze slightly to Kurt when he said that. Kurt shook his head and mouthed throw it out right back.)
"Wait, who are these chumps?" asked Puck, tilting his head toward the four strangers as he took a seat in front.
"We're trying to figure that out but you chumps keep stampeding through and interrupting," said Mercedes, rolling her eyes. "Forgive them, they're insane."
"I've certainly seen my fair share of that," said the blond guy, in a high and vaguely not-American voice.
"My name is Ginny," said the redhead, and Artie chuckled a little.
"Bet you get crap for that a lot, yeah?"
She blinked at him. "For what?"
"Well, you know - long red hair, kinda skinny, and your name is - you know, like in Harry Potter?"
The brunette gasped. "Wait, but you're - you've heard of Harry Potter?"
Lauren snorted. "Lady, who hasn't heard of Harry Potter? It's made like, billions of dollars and you'd have to be kind of culturally blind. And deaf. And stupid."
"Well, I just thought - since you're Muggles and - "
"Hermione, don't you think this is getting a little ridiculous?" said the redheaded guy, leaning in to whisper to the other girl and - no. Really? He turned to them. "Look, there's been a mistake, and we just wanna get home. We're looking for my friend Harry. He's kind of about this tall - " he gestured parallel to the ground at about the neighborhood of his armpits - "and he's got like really messy hair and glasses. Once we find him, we're leaving, and we don't wanna cause any trouble or get in anybody's way. Okay?"
But Lauren had actually gotten up and crossed over to them now, and was scrutinizing the shorter girl's face from an inappropriately close distance. "Hang on a second," she mumbled. "If you're Ginny Weasley - " she pointed at the redhead without even looking at her, still fixated - "are you actually Hermione? And this is Ron, and this is - "
"Draco Malfoy, of course!" he said haughtily, and Artie laughed again.
"Okay, yeah, that's where you're losing me," said Lauren. "This is some great cosplay on the three of you, don't get me wrong, and you're super in-character and everything - I bet you two are actually dating, am I right? You can't fake that."
"Well, yes," said "Hermione," straightening up a little and pulling back from Lauren, adjusting the front of her sweater.
"See? Great! But you really should've tried to find a better Draco," she continued. "Everyone knows the real Draco should be about as tall as Ron and look amazing in leather pants. I don't believe you for a second."
"What - what are you insinuating?" demanded the blond kid, shouldering past Mercedes to stand toe-to-toe with Lauren and coming up not even to her nose. Mercedes shot a look at Artie, who just shrugged. "I daresay the Malfoy family name should carry quite enough weight for me, regardless of my trousers or my - my physical stature. What does a filthy Muggle know about anything anyway?" He glared hard up into Lauren's eyes and she stared incredulously back.
She shrugged and finally gave up. "Eh, I guess I can see why you picked this kid."
"Look, this isn't acting!" sputtered the Hermione chick, hands flapping. "I don't know how you know so much about the four of us, or about Harry, or why anyone would want to - to dress up as us, but my name is Hermione Granger and we are looking for Harry, we don't know where he ended up, so could you please - "
"If you're really Hermione Granger," said Sam suddenly, "prove it."
"What?" asked about six people.
"You know - do some magic, or something. Like Lumos or Expelliarmus or something."
"Ginny's" eyes went impossibly wider. "How do these Muggles know all of this?"
"I don't know," said Hermione, turning back to her.
"What are we supposed to do?" said Ron. "I think the rule about not doing magic in front of Muggles kind of goes out the window when they all seem to already know about it."
"Yes, but we're still not supposed to do magic outside of school - "
"We're in their school!" said Ginny.
"I love how they're talking about all of us like we're not even here," said Mercedes, grabbing the handles of Artie's chair and wheeling him back over toward the risers.
"Is it bad that I'm kind of used to it?" he muttered back.
"Oh for crying out loud, Granger, just do it already!" said Malfoy finally. "Look, I'll do it. No one's using this chair, are they?" He gestured to the empty seat between Finn and Puck before shoving up the sleeves of his oversized shirt and pulling out what even Mercedes had to admit was a super-legit-looking wooden wand from some pocket somewhere.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" he chanted, twirling the wand around, and then -
Shit. It actually happened.
The room let out a collective gasp as the chair flew into the air. It leveled out about a foot over Finn and Puck's heads, but it didn't look too stable, bobbing and weaving through the air as Draco guided it around the room a little bit faster than Mercedes thought was necessary. Hermione dropped her face into her hand, Ginny clapped and squealed and Brittany bounded up, trying to catch the legs of the chair as it whisked past her and Santana.
Draco was looking particularly pleased with himself until the chair swept past the open door to the choir room and clocked Mr. Schuester square in the face.
-xxx-
Blaine sat between Nick and Jonathan at the Warblers' senior council table. The rest of them, including two freshmen who'd been tapped for auditions today, sat around the rest of the room.
The person claiming to be Harry Potter sat in the middle right in front of him.
"I'm sorry, but this has to be a joke," said Trent, shaking his head and flapping his hand. "Nice try, Jeff, but we're not buying it."
"What - me?" said Jeff. "Look, guys, just because I found him wandering in the halls like this doesn't mean he's my responsibility, does it? It's not like the time that cat followed me home - "
"I don't think we should blame Jeff," said Jonathan evenly. "I don't think we should blame anyone. I'm just confused as to why someone would play this kind of joke in the first place."
"I'm telling you, it's not a joke," said the new guy. "I don't know where I am, how I ended up here, how you guys all seem to know my name when you're totally Muggles, but I'm definitely Harry Potter. It's not something I lie about." He adjusted his glasses, and the neat collar of his polo shirt. His face went a little smug.
"There's no such thing as Harry Potter," said Fletcher from the back of the room. "It's dumb kids' books and dumb kids' movies and the only good thing to come out of it is Emma Watson." Bernard fistbumped him and Blaine struggled not to roll his eyes.
"Hey!" said Jeff.
"Books? Movies?" said Harry. "That would be awesome."
"What if we make him do magic?" said Nick.
"I mean, I guess I could, but - "
"He obviously can't do magic," said Trent.
"Well what if we ask him something that only the real Harry Potter would know?"
"Also known as 'something only Jeff and Marcus would know because they're giant nerds'!"
"Guys!" said Jonathan, smacking the gavel once against the table. "The anti-bullying policy is still in full effect, okay?"
"But you can't possibly believe this!"
"I believe him."
Blaine felt every eye turn on him as the room fell silent. He rose from behind the council table and crossed behind Nick, heading to where Harry sat in the center.
"But - why, Blaine?" asked Trent, still mildly flabbergasted.
"Because," he said. "At the risk of pointing out the giant elephant in the room?" He glanced fleetingly over at Jeff, and Jeff was nodding. "He looks just. Like. Me." Blaine smiled. "And I know full well what my own face looks like when it's lying. And he's telling the truth." He stopped right in front of Harry and stuck out his hand for a shake, and Harry stood up, their eyes exactly even, their palms similarly sweaty when they met. "Blaine Anderson. Head Councilman for the Dalton Academy Warblers."
Harry shook it, nervous but strong. "Uh, Harry Potter. Chosen One." He clicked his teeth and Blaine laughed outright.
"Awesome. How'd you end up here, anyway?"
"You know, I haven't quite figured that out yet, unfortunately," he said. "Magic, man. It's kind of a bitch sometimes."
"Such language," muttered Trent, scandalized, but Blaine chose to ignore it.
"I can see where that might be an issue, yes. Is there any way we can help you get back to where you're going?"
"I mean, if there were I would totally tell you, but before I go anywhere I kind of need to find my friends. I have no idea where they ended up."
"Who, Ron and Hermione?" scoffed Fletcher.
Harry turned and stared at him, pulling a bitchface that, while it wouldn't even rival Kurt's on a bad day, was still pretty impressive. "Them and my girlfriend Ginny actually, is there a problem, man?"
"Just ignore Fletcher, please," said Jonathan.
"Why don't you just stick with me for now?" said Blaine. "We can tell people you're my cousin, if we have to, and no one will have to know and we won't have to sit through all of this again. And in the meantime, we'll do anything we can to help you find your friends. I promise."
"Uh, cool, thanks," said Harry. "So like, my friend Ron is about so tall, and with red - "
Blaine just laughed again. "Yeah, we know." He rocked back a step or two and addressed the rest of the room. "Well, Warblers, our first business meeting has been somewhat of a wash. You'll all report this afternoon to our first rehearsal and performance meeting and we'll get started on refreshing our standard material and generating a list of which songs to retire and which we might want to integrate new into our repertoire. We'll also be auditioning Gage and Jackson at that time. In the meantime, go to class, and it'd probably be best if we just pretended this whole thing never happened." He smiled out at them, and Jonathan swung the gavel twice to signal the end of the meeting before the room dissolved into murmurs and the rustling of bags and papers.
Harry frowned at him and shifted his weight to one hip, folding his arms. "So yeah, Mr. Head Councilman, about that whole thing where we've got the same face."
"Sorry?" said Blaine.
"That fake-ass smile you just plastered on for everyone?" said Harry. "You hate this."
Blaine faltered a little, but kept smiling back at him. "The Warblers have a stellar reputation here at Dalton, I love being part of such a great group."
Harry nodded his head back and forth a little and made a dismissive gesture. "Yeah, okay, the warbling thing, maybe. Music stuff, right?" Blaine nodded. "I totally feel you, music is awesome, even when everything else sucks. But that's the thing here. This school? Sucks."
"Dalton is a very prestigious - "
"Bite me," said Harry. "Hogwarts is prestigious. I should know, I kind of run that shit. But this is..." He looked slowly around at their practice room, and Blaine saw his eyes stop on the Warblers tapestry, the wide windows, the gavel. "This is stuffy is what it is. This is a stick up your ass and not in the fun way. You're suffocating here, Blaine." He laughed, kind of pathetically. "Loosen your tie."
Before Blaine could react much, Harry drew an honest-to-god wand from his pocket and flicked it in a sharp, tiny movement at Blaine's collar. Instantly the top button of his shirt popped open, and his tie slid down a couple of inches, still tied but slightly rumpled where it ducked back into his blazer. After a few seconds of contemplation, Harry swung the wand again, this time at his hair. Blaine's whole scalp prickled, and when he reached up to check what had happened, he found his head a mess of loose curls, his hair gel completely vanished. He smoothed his hand against it perhaps more slowly than he'd intended, and Harry's face (his face) broke out into a lopsided grin.
"Yeah," he said. "Feels great, doesn't it."
"I should probably head to class," said Blaine, giving Harry a smile - small, wry, and deliberately genuine. "Are you coming, or not?"
-xxx-
"So what exactly was the reasoning for sticking me with him, anyway?"
Sam groaned, hiking his backpack further up his shoulder and gritting his teeth a little. "Look, you and I look the most alike, so you're easiest to pass off as like, my stupid little brother or something. Plus I'm pretty sure I know the most about the Harry Potter series after like, Lauren and maybe Artie or Mike, so they were hoping I'd have a better handle on you," he said. "But clearly that's not going to happen." You know, considering Draco was basically only speaking directly to Kurt.
"But I don't want to go to your stupid Muggle classes with you!" Malfoy whined. "Can't I just stay in that room and hide out and just ignore the fact that all of you exist?"
"The two classes of the jazz ensemble have practice in there second and third periods," said Kurt, walking beside them, "and then Mr. Schue is in there grading papers sometimes. If he doesn't turn out to be concussed." Kurt side-eyed Malfoy hard. "Besides, everyone else had to go with someone, you saw. Hermione's with Rachel and Ginny's with Mercedes and Ron's with Puck - which if you ask me is just an explosive disaster waiting to happen - oh, she texted me back. Hm. No, Mercedes says she got to Halley's class and checked with all her regular gossip sources and no one's seen anyone like Harry at all. And if they haven't seen him, he isn't here. Those bitches be crazy."
Sam grit his teeth even harder and tried not to think about how much he would have liked to be kissing Mercedes right now. "I just hope he didn't end up too far away from here. Can't you guys contact him, somehow?"
"What, like you all just have owls sitting around waiting patiently should a wizard stumble into this Muggle mess? No-oh, you have to get all pointlessly complicated with your cellophane phones and Quirties and whatnot. Snore."
"Look, I'm not trying to be rude, but could you please, maybe, just shut up for a second and walk to class with us?" said Sam.
"You're doing a wonderful job considering you're not trying."
"Okay, seriously?" said Kurt. "I know you're kind of this snotty one-note character up until the sixth one or so but you could at least - hey, where do you think you're going?"
Because Malfoy had shot suddenly away from them and out into the crowd of students headed to second period, and was so small he would have disappeared into the sea of them if it weren't for his shock of bright blond hair. Sam was so over this already - couldn't this week of all weeks just have been normal - and he shouldered forward after him, not even bothering to see if Kurt was keeping up or just heading to bio lab without him. He knocked into a few people with his backpack, but he didn't even care - this Malfoy twerp was his responsibility now and Sam was damned if he was gonna disappear on him and wreak stupid magic havoc everywhere.
He finally got a hand clamped hard on Malfoy's shoulder right as his hand was reaching for the knob on the door to - the basement boiler room? What the heck? Malfoy winced in Sam's grip and was still spinning around to face him when Kurt caught up, his breathing a little heavy and his face stern.
"No," he scolded. "Absolutely not. I was trying not to treat you like a puppy that we need to keep on a leash at all times but if you're seriously thinking about trying to leave without the rest of them - "
"You're right!" said Sam suddenly. "Hermione said you guys got here by Floo powder, there's totally no fireplace in here at all. The closest thing would be the furnace. What the hell gives, man?"
Malfoy scowled. "Oh, come on, you're not serious? I ran into those losers by accident, on my way home from my grandmother's house. We didn't come here together and there's absolutely nothing that says we have to leave here together either. Just let me go, this is stupid." He shrugged Sam's hand off his shoulder hard. "Even you think it's stupid."
"Of course I think it's stupid," said Sam. "Doesn't mean you get to punk out on your friends."
"They're not my friends," Malfoy insisted.
"Either way!" said Sam. "You'd probably be boned without Hermione, anyway, you guys don't know if they fixed that thing or not and I wouldn't trust any of you to last two minutes without her brains."
"And furthermore," hissed Kurt, who was practically seething at this point, "you'd never forgive yourself for leaving behind people you care about." He exhaled sharply and his face set into something dark and impassive. "I know that from experience."
Malfoy shuffled his feet. "They're not my friends," he mumbled again, but there was no force behind it - no one would have believed him. He relaxed, a little, and when Kurt to head on to bio, Malfoy followed obediently behind, with Sam bringing up the rear. Kurt seemed more relaxed, too, laughing about a funny text Blaine had sent him.
But Sam, with the words leaving behind people you care about still thudding through his head, was as tense as ever.
-xxx-
Ron's hand was hovering on the handle to the passenger door of the beat-up, black-painted Cadillac, with his Muggle buddy-system friend already sliding into the driver's seat, before it occurred to him to ask.
"Dude, what are we doing?"
Puck leaned across the center of the bench seats to look up at him through the half-open window. "We're cutting class, bro! I got some weed and some sick new PS3 games back at my house, I wanna see what happens when a wizard gets baked. Now let's go before Buzzkill Becky Johnson catches us."
Ron shrugged, slid in, and adjusted his headband in the mirror on the underside of the sun visor. "Works for me."
-xxx-
to part two
It is also so long it won't fit into one post. So.
"So man, I gotta tell you, this has totally been the best summer ever."
"I know, right?" Ron grinned at his best friend as they thundered side-by-side down the stairs to his room in the basement. It had been the best summer ever. They'd finally talked Harry's dumbass Muggle family into letting him come spend most of July and August at the Weasleys' house, and he and Harry had been broing it up in his room the whole time, feasting on snacks and practicing all the underage magic they could possibly get away with. Hermione had finally let him get to third base, and that had been glorious. If he just didn't think too hard about how Ginny and Harry had probably done the exact same thing two floors above where they were sitting right now - or the mountain of summer homework they'd all been procrastinating on that he'd probably just make Hermione do for him on the train - Ron couldn't imagine a way the summer could have gone any better, that's for sure.
"I can't believe I went three years without knowing there were wizard video games. How cool is that?" They took their spots on Ron's grungy old sofa - the same spots they'd been sitting in most of the summer, now perfectly comfort-conformed to their butts, Harry on the right and Ron on the left because he was always player 1, duh - and slotted their wands tip-first into the controller pods for Ultima Quidditch 2012, the miniature 3-D figures coming to life in their enclosed case on the other side of the room.
"It's way cooler than Muggle games, that's for sure. You're using screens, what's up with that?"
"Hey, I've been playing Muggle games my whole life before this and I'm still gonna kick your ass, Weasley."
"In your Squirt-flavored dreams," Ron shot back. "I've got five older brothers and I still have the high score on this thing."
"Not for long!"
Ron scowled at Harry and gripped his wand-joystick, bracing himself for yet another of their crazy Quidditch deathmatches, but no sooner had he sent the orange team's best Chaser up to the faceoff with Harry's when another set of footsteps - a different, higher pitch but no less thunderous - tore down the stairs and stopped at the landing, scowling down at them.
"Ro-onnn - "
"Dammit, stupid sister! Pause," he hissed softly to the game-box, the spell freezing the tiny Quidditch men inside. He whirled around to glare at her. Ginny's lip quivered under his gaze, and then she shifted to glare at Harry. Ron glanced back over at Harry and saw him making a pained expression, and eventually he looked over and glared at Ron.
(This kept happening. Ron kind of wished someone had told him that being best friends with your sister's boyfriend kind of sucked sometimes.)
He sighed. "Yes, Ginny, what do you want?" he tried again, trying to be nice but still about two-thirds as annoyed as before.
"Mom says you guys have to go out and get stuff for dinner tonight."
"What? How come?"
"She said - " Ginny put on a pretty terrifyingly good impression of their mother. "It's Harry and Hermione's last night in the house and I'm gonna look like a monkey's ass if I don't have some kinda good food on the table for them to remember me by. She's doing something really fancy and doesn't have the right ingredients and wants you to go into Diagon Alley."
"Wait, so she wants to cook me an awesome dinner and I have to go buy all the stuff for it?" Harry said. "That seems kinda lame."
Ginny rolled her eyes. "I don't think she trusts Ron with the whole list - "
"Hang on, I can totally buy groceries by myself!"
"Cool, then uhhh, you do it, and I'm gonna be here reading your Warrior Wizard comic books and drinking the last of the Squirt, no big deal."
"You can't take those out of the packaging!" Ron yelled for probably the millionth time, because seriously? "No, you're coming with me."
"Seriously? I was totally kidding, I'd probably just end up making out with Ginny the whole time you were gone." He winked at her where she still stood at the bottom of the stairs. "Best summer ever."
"No. No. You're both coming with me." He lowered his voice to growl at Harry. "You are not getting more action than I do in my own damn house."
"Okay, okay, fine, jeez. Cockblock."
"Ronald Weasley!" his mom shouted from upstairs, and Ginny started wringing her hands together. "We better hurry, I think she's getting - antsy."
"Go upstairs and get the fireplace ready and we'll meet you in a second," said Ron, already crossing to his dresser to get a different shirt (one that was "nice enough to wear out in public" or Hermione would talk his ear off again) and some socks and his sneakers. Harry dug through his trunk for similar, and stopped for a moment to clean some specks off his glasses. When they were "presentable" enough they joined Ginny up by the fireplace.
"I hate using the Floo in the summer," said Ron. "It's already like ninenty degrees and then you have to light a fire just to get anywhere."
"Yeah, magic is awesome but sometimes it's pretty dumb," said Harry. "Oh well. Maybe we can stop off and get some ice cream at Fortescue's while we're down there? I think they've got one that has like, Pop Rocks on it."
"Harry Potter, don't you dare spoil your supper!" Mrs. Weasley shouted from the kitchen. "You're not getting anything that isn't on that list, you hear me?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Harry, scuffing at his ankle with the toe of his other shoe.
Ron rolled his eyes, and was about to apologize to Harry for his mom being so obnoxious, when suddenly Hermione's stupid cat shot out of freaking nowhere and collided with his left shin. Ron screamed and knocked into Ginny, who nearly fell into the fireplace before it was ready. While she was trying to snuff out the fire on the tail ends of the hair that had fallen over her right shoulder, Ron cast a look into the next room over, searching for his girlfriend.
"Hermione!" he yelled. "Come get your stupid cat, will you?"
"Sorry!" she responded, and he heard some scuffling as she came running toward them - but she froze when she was still two steps behind the sofa.
"Ron, what are you doing?"
"We're going to Diagon Alley so Mom can make a fancy dinner tonight!" said Ginny, doling out Floo powder to Harry and then to Ron. "I love when she makes new stuff," she added in a lower voice, glancing back toward the kitchen, "it's a nice change of pace from the same four or five - "
"Ginevra Weasley, unless you want to go to bed without dinner - "
"Yes Mom!!" she shrieked. She took a little Floo powder in her own hand and then nudged Ron with her elbow. "Come on, guys."
"Ron, you can't go in there!"
"Hermione, it's a magic fire, remember? I'm not gonna burn anything. That was just the one time."
"No, Ron, don't - " She stumbled hastily over to him. "The Floo network is supposed to be down in several broad areas for major repairs today! There's no telling what could - "
"Ahh, c'mon, Hermz," said Harry. "I'm sure if there were something wrong with our stretch of the Floo, someone would've said something, in like, a public service announcement or some dumb shit like that. Let's go, I really wanna get back and finish that Ultima Quidditch match before dinner - "
"Harry, no!" said Hermione, flinging her arms across them both. Ron managed to catch himself, but it sent Harry reeling straight into Ginny, who tripped into the side of the mantle and used it to lever herself back upright. But that bumped her right back into Harry, who scuffed the heel of his shoe against the edge of the fireplace and tumbled backward into the fire, choking as he lost some of his wind.
"D - uh - on A...ley," he managed, the rest of his words wracked with coughs from the fire as he was whisked away.
Ron realized, like, way too late that Harry had grabbed onto the hem of his T-shirt and still had a grip on it as he fell.
Desperate, Ron reached out to Hermione and Ginny, grabbing one cozy around the waist and the other by the edge of her hair (and realizing, unfortunately, that he'd done it the wrong way around) and barely managing to shout out some directions of his own as all three of them - and Ginny's way, way too big handful of Floo powder - crashed into the back of the hearth too.
He really hoped that sounded enough like Diagon Alley, anyway.
They whirled miserably fast through the torrents of green flames, careening this way and that like they were backward on a roller coaster (or well, upside-down in Hermione's case) and slamming into the walls of the Floo tunnels in a way that just barely managed to not be painful. He had Ginny's elbow lodged hard in his stomach and Hermione's face buried in his armpit and this was so, like, the stupidest way to travel ever. Harry was right. Then, as if the day hadn't gone shitty enough already, they passed through a section of tunnel that merged and yet another bony, annoying body slammed straight into Ron and Hermione's ribs. Ron opened his mouth to scream what the hell but the sounds were lost in the dark green-tinged vortex of the Floo. (Seriously, it was like the freaking Matrix in here.)
They finally shot out the other end onto a dank concrete floor, with Ron on the bottom of the four-person dogpile, staring at a pair of far-too-shiny reptile-skin shoes as he hauled himself to a kneeling position and tried to catch his breath. And then - shit. He knew those shoes.
"Draco!" Ginny squealed, tripping past him to wrap Malfoy in a hug while Hermione reached down and helped him stand. Ron took her hand without looking - he was still glaring over at the other two. Ginny being Draco's "friend" was annoying.
"Malfoy, what are you doing here?" he said. "How did you - "
"Granger. Weasley." He dusted off some non-existent soot from the shoulder of his shirt and straightened the lapel of his vest. "I suppose this is all your fault, then."
"My fault?" shouted Ron. "How are you already blaming - "
"Well, Ron, he has a point," said Hermione. "I did tell you not to take the Floo network today, there's no telling what could have happened now because you didn't listen to me - "
"Dammit, Hermione, you're supposed to be on my - "
"Guys," said Ginny, suddenly. "Where's Harry?"
Ron stopped. Hermione stopped. Draco stopped. They all kind of looked around, at the dim and grungy environment they'd Flooed into - a thick furnace, barely any fire burning in it at all, just some coals tinged with green, and a messy, dusty basement space that looked like it was being used for storage.
"And where are we?"
Ron raised his wand from his pocket and told it Lumos before stepping cautiously forward, craning his head ahead of the rest of his body to peer around and look. Malfoy kept muttering about how it was his fault, but Ron waved his other hand back at him. "Shut up for a second, okay?" He could hear a faint sound coming from somewhere - something like people, milling around like normal. Maybe they'd just ended up in some boiler room by accident, and they'd show up in regular Diagon Alley if they could just -
"Aha! Guys, there's stairs over here, come on!" Hermione rushed over right behind him, followed by Ginny and, complaining the whole time like a bitch, Draco. They climbed the stairs and unlocked the door - Hermione gave it a quick Alohomora and stepped out into...
A hallway?
A really busy, squeaky hallway, with a bunch of kids their own age running everywhere, and some obnoxiously bright tiled floors and rows of metal lockers everywhere and oh, shit, a really tall really angry woman with short hair and a bright green track suit charging straight at them.
"What on Pat Sajak's green earth were you weirdos doing down in the boiler room?" she barked at them. Ron and Ginny froze - Hermione was the one who was finally able to speak.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, um, we're just - "
"Lost on your way to the choir room? I should have figured. Kids as weird as you can't belong to anyone but Schuester. Although you two are miserably ginger enough that I guess you could also pass for the black sheep of the Pillsbury family. Come on, back to where you belong, freak show."
As she rushed them along down the hallway, long arms not taking no for an answer, Malfoy finally managed to find his voice, too. "This is fairly preposterous, you know," he told her.
"On the contrary, I think it's preposterously fair."
"I'm just saying, I'd watch it if I were you. My father is capable of a lot of things in this - "
"Listen, Fontleroy, unless your father has a higher authority clearance than I do in the Ohio public school system - which is impossible, because I was recently granted a special level of power completely specific to the one and only Sue Sylvester that gives me governing power over just about every other body in the system at will - then I don't think he can do tiddlywinks to me." She came to a stop with her frog-marching in front of a shoddy wooden door, threw it open and shoved them inside. "And stay there. I've got to have a talk with William about being a better zookeeper."
The door slammed right in Ron's face and he took a couple of steps back, knocking shoulders with Hermione and then turning around to face the room they were in. It had a wide two-level arc of seats across the back, with high windows on the curved wall and more of the weird squeaky tile floors. Off to their left was a glossy black piano and beyond that was a big white board...thing with red and green marks left over little parts of it, writing that Ron couldn't read from where they stood. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before, and that kind of sucked. He reached out and took Hermione's hand and was super-relieved when she grabbed it back and squeezed, just as scared as he was, even as he could see the look on her face that meant the weird well-oiled gears of her brain were nocking into each other at a mile a minute trying to puzzle things out through the fear. To her right, Malfoy had his arms folded across his chest and was kind of curling in on himself.
Only Ginny was bold enough to take a couple steps out into the open space in the center of the room, turning slowly to take it all in. She stopped when she'd gone far enough around that she was standing facing them, and bit her bottom lip.
"So um, again," she murmured, "where are we?"
-xxx-
Harry hit the hearth hard on his knees and coughed furiously, clutching one hand to his chest to try and stabilize because, like, people always did that in the movies for some reason. He'd lost his glasses somewhere along the line and he groped around for them, landing on the frames after four or five blind grabs and lifting them up to his face. One of the lenses had a slim crack straight from top to bottom just to the left of center. Shit.
When he finally regained his bearings he stood up, trying to take in his surroundings. He definitely wasn't in Diagon Alley, that's for sure. He wasn't in Knockturn Alley or Seckshoe Alley like he'd landed when he'd screwed up before, either. He appeared to be standing in a fireplace set into the middle of the wall of a long, broad hallway, with grand decor and bright, shining polished floors. There were high windows on the wall across from him and soft bustles of noise coming from way down to his left. Figuring that was the best place to start to get a little better oriented, Harry brushed as much of the Floo soot off his clothes as he could, ran a hand through his wild hair, straightened his glasses, and turned to head in the direction of the sound.
No sooner had he set foot off the hearth and onto the slick floor than he felt a weird, soft-gross lethargy sink into his limbs, accompanied by a vague molasses-y spinning in his head. The next step he took his leg moved right down the path his brain was telling it to but at a slug's pace, pressing through the air like it had somehow become denser, even as his eyes scanned around and showed that nothing had changed. It was one of the most disorienting things Harry had ever experienced - it was like his entire life was suddenly in slow motion.
He was instantly suspicious of any unknown magic and whirled as fast as he could to jump back onto the hearth and into what he assumed was relative safety. The backward movement took just as long, and by the time he was free from the field of the spell his momentum was so out of control that he fell back to his knees again.
"What the hell?" Harry whispered. Where was he?
He tested the figurative waters of the hall again, but to the same results: slo-mo, the instant he stepped off the hearth. Arms, legs, voice, anything. The second return to the hearth was a little more graceful. Harry frowned at the edge of where the floor changed and drew out his wand from his pocket, thankful it hadn't cracked in the Floo fiasco.
"Finite Incantatum," he said pointedly to the void of the hallway, jabbing his wand outward. But even the spell itself was affected - when the pulse of yellow light hit the invisible barrier of the shift, it slowed and stuttered, flowing through the too-dense air like a pond rippling (in slow motion, of course. What the hell).
Harry frowned harder, scratching at the mess of his hair again. This hallway was ridiculous, but with the Floo down and his friends nowhere in sight, he was going to have to press through it to get off the island of the hearth sooner or later. Might as well bite the bullet and take the plunge and...some other metaphor. It was his only means of escape.
Pocketing his wand and steeling his resolve, Harry took the heavy, hesitant step he'd need to take to get off the hearth and back into the hallway. As soon as both feet were on the glossy floor the effect took over, slowing every movement that Harry made, his legs strange and buckling, his arms uncertain. It was incredibly hard to walk like this with the sensation of the magic clinging like something sticky and gross all over his skin and clothes and hair. He closed his eyes for a quick moment that lasted way too long and tried to do a Hermione. How did you overcome a weird obstacle when the solution that made actual sense became impossible? He figured the best option was probably to just think about it as little as he could. If he kept dwelling on how weird it was his body would never catch up, but if he blanked his mind and made himself just stroll down the hallway like he wasn't moving a third as fast as usual then maybe his body would just default to something normal rather than something strained and freaking annoying.
With this in mind, or not in mind, or whatever, Harry plodded his way to the end of the hallway until it hit a T-intersection and he tumbled back into real-time again - more gracefully than the first time but unfortunately less gracefully than the second. At least no one was around to see him, and when he finally caught himself and straightened up, Harry was given his first real chance to examine his new surroundings unhindered.
It was more glossy floors and more high, grandiose ceilings, hallways that were silent and empty but clearly meant to withstand heavy traffic. The windows here were broader and letting in thick yellow sunlight from outside, overlooking a small and lushly green courtyard area surrounded by more walls of the building, or maybe other buildings. In fact, the more Harry looked at it, the more it really kind of started to look like...
And then he saw it. On a broad otherwise-open space of wall a little to his left was an enormous tapestry...banner...thing, bearing in pretentious fancy script the words Dalton Academy.
"It's a school," Harry murmured to himself. This was not Diagon Alley, but Dalton Academy, wherever that was. Harry could even kind of see how a malfunctioning Floo combined with his own stuttering voice could have gotten the words confused. So that was one layer of "totally fucking weird" peeled back: he had a name for this place, and he kind of knew how he'd gotten here. Maybe if he could find another fireplace that wasn't malfunctioning, or someone to make a Portkey for him or something, he could get back to the Weasleys' house and start over on working to find his friends from there. He might even get out of this place unnoticed, which would make it way easier to -
Oh.
Well, no.
Because suddenly a large, loud bell was chiming from somewhere else on the campus grounds, and from doors on either side of Harry, students in blue-blazered uniforms started pouring out, milling and laughing and echoing in the vast hallways. They jostled into him from all sides as they began to pass him, spinning him around, disorienting him, until one guy - about half a head taller than Harry (a little less with the hair, okay) with blond bangs spilling down into his eyes, stopped and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Whoa, Blaine? You really grew your hair over the summer!"
"What?" said Harry. "No, whah - my name's not - " He dropped one eyebrow at this guy. "Do you seriously not recognize me?"
"You're - not Blaine?"
"No! What kind of name is that?" Harry tried again, being a little more obvious this time. He tipped his glasses down his nose a bit and brushed his hair back from his forehead so that it framed his scar perfectly. "Now do you recognize me?"
The blond guy frowned kind of pitifully. "Nah, dude. I'm kind of terrible with names and faces, sorry...should I?"
"Well, I just figured most people kind of knew Harry Potter when they saw him."
At this the guy actually laughed - full-on, loud, drawing the attention of some of the other guys bustling through the hallway. "Man, that's a good one! But seriously, Blaine, a prank like this on the first day of school - "
"What's going on, Jeff?" Another student had come up beside the blond guy and tapped him on the elbow, trying to figure out what was going on in the commotion. Jeff spun to look down at him, a response on his lips, but it sputtered into nothingness when he saw who it was.
"But - isn't that - how can - what - oh, what..."
And Harry was tempted to agree. Because when he and the new guy finally made eye contact, it was practically like staring into a mirror.
(Well, a mirror with contact lenses, and no scar, and way shorter way grosser-looking hair, and who had maybe shaved a little closer than Harry had that morning...but still.)
-xxx-
Hermione scanned the room through narrowed eyes, trying to make the pieces fit, trying to concentrate.
"Can you believe the decor of this place? What kind of absurd pattern is that on the wall?"
"Oh wow, Malfoy, I never would've taken you for the interior decorating type."
They obviously weren't anywhere near Diagon Alley. She was fairly certain this was someplace far, far away from the things they were familiar with - and she was beginning to think this was probably a Muggle place, too. There was a television on a rolling cart - a big amp for an electric guitar or a bass -
"Oh sod off, Weasley. Just because your mess of a house is so small that you don't even have room for any kind of design motif to speak of, doesn't mean the rest of us have to settle for such squalor. You could do with learning to appreciate the finer things in life."
"Draco, have you ever even been to our house before? It's actually kinda nice!"
She kept scanning, but there wasn't much more she could get from visuals alone, not from where she was standing. With tentative steps, she hunted around for a calendar, photographs, anything, and the gears in her brain kept turning, grinding against each other...
"Oh, so you're inviting him to our house now? Damnit, sister - "
"I'm just saying he shouldn't knock it before he's tried it! I know you're used to like, your big fancy mansion and stuff, but there's something so warm about - "
"Are you implying Malfoy Manor is cold?"
...like her teeth.
"Guys can you just shut up for a second??" Hermione finally screamed, arms straightening ramrod-stiff as her fists clenched down against the sides of her skirt.
"Whoa, whoa," said Ron faintly, crossing over to her as he finally snapped out of it, thank god. "Babe, are you - "
"Sorry," she said, realizing suddenly that it was true. "It's just - I hate when things go wrong like this. After the whole Umbridge thing and then the whole Voldemort thing and just...I just want to go through a year of school where everything goes normal for a change." She leaned into his hand on her shoulder. "Every time something weird starts to happen it just kind of freaks me out."
"No, I totally get that," said Ginny, stepping over to her too. Draco huffed by the door, his arms crossed over his chest. "It's like all the stuff that's stupid and bad happens to us, huh?" Her giggle was forced, but it was appreciated nonetheless, and Hermione smiled.
"Good thing we've got practice then, I guess." She swept her hands through her hair, making like she was going to pull it back but then just dropping it. "Okay. I just. I think I've almost got this figured out. We were headed from the Burrow to Diagon Alley...but then... - yes!" It was totally freaking stupid, but it made sense! Geez, and if that's what had happened, the Floo network really needed to improve the layout of their infrastructure.
"Yes what?" asked Draco, and Ron and Ginny kind of nodded in agreement.
Oh, right. She was going to have to explain it to them. That was always the hard part.
"Okay. Um." Hermione looked around to get her bearings and her eyes lighted on the dry erase board off to the lefthand side of the room. "Oh! Okay. So - "
"Hermione, are you sure?" Ginny whispered to her as they crossed to the board. "You know you can't - "
"Just give me a second," she said, "how bad could it be?" Hermione cleared her throat. "Okay. So, so here's where we started..." She drew a small circle about eye-level with Ron, off to one side. "And then this must be where Malfoy started." She drew a second circle, parallel. Sort of.
"My grandmother's house," said Draco. "Dying to get out of there, crazy old harpie, but if this is the alternative...."
"Can you please just keep your two Knuts to yourself for a second?" said Ron, rolling his eyes.
Hermione continued with her diagram. "So we took the Floo, but it misrouted us...um, this way." She drew an arc, descending down from the circle that represented the Burrow and belling out, curving back in to a spot...somewhat centered between the two circles, but further down. "And then Malfoy, it must have sent you like - like this." She made another arc that mirrored the first, which intersected with it higher up, swept past it, and then rejoined it in the same place at the bottom, to make a sort of almond shape. Wow, this was actually turning out pretty good!
But Ron snorted. "Uh. Heheh, sure, okay."
"What?" said Hermione.
"Oh no, it's, no, keep going." He fluttered his hand at her but then set it back on his chin and sniggered softly into it a couple more times before calming down.
"Um...yeah, see! So here's where we hit you, Malfoy - " she tapped the marker against and around the place where the arcs intersected for the first time. "From the Floo misroute. Then around here - " She drew a bunch of smaller almond shapes inside the bigger one, going over her lines again and again, and it got a little messy but she was trying to make a point - "somewhere in here was where we lost Harry."
"Oh!" gasped Ginny, "oh...oh. Heehee."
"Yes, exactly! And then the spot at the bottom is where we are now - wherever that is. It's a Muggle school, definitely, but I don't know where..."
But now all three of them were laughing, Ginny pressing her face hard into Draco's shoulder and Ron scratching at the back of his head, torn somewher between embarrassed and hysterical. Hermione felt her enthusiasm for working out the problem deflate out of her, and her shoulders slumped as she turned from them back to her drawing. It wasn't that bad, was it? It was supposed to be a diagram, a representation, not an actual illustration of anything. What could it possibly look like other than -
"Whoa, okay Frankenberry, if you want to come join my team I guess there's no stopping you but you're really gonna need to understand that the little ladymuffin between your legs does not look like - wait a minute, you're not Rachel. Who are you and why are you drawing a taco on our whiteboard?"
Ron howled with laughter and Hermione blanched as the realization sank over her. Oh, oh no, did her helpful graphic really look like - like someone's woman parts?
She was suddenly very defensive and nearly had to shout to be heard over Ginny's giggling. "Well, who are you?" she said, staring down the girl who'd just walked through the door.
"Santana Lopez, obviously...." She was eyeing them up and down, slowly, but Hermione's brain had started going a mile a minute again. Lopez?
"Lopez, Lo - wait a second!" She snapped her fingers and rounded on Draco, scowling. "Aren't the Lopezes related to the Malfoy family?"
At this Ron sobered up, laying his hand on her shoulder again. "Um, babe," he whispered, "we talked about this? No breaking the fourth wall?"
Hermione winced. "Right - sorry..." She turned back to the dark-haired girl, who was crossing from the doorway to sit in one of the chairs on the risers at the back of the room. "San - Santana?"
"Yeah," she said hesitantly - "how have you not heard of me? Resident queer bitch extraordinaire?" She waved her hand dismissively. "Hummel might try to tell you that's him, but he's lying, I'm definitely numero uno. You can't cancel out an entire childhood in Lima Heights Adjacent with like, half a semester at gay Hogwarts."
Now Ginny and Draco froze, too, and as one all four of them seemed to give her the same sort of happy-desperate, disbelieving look.
"Ho...Hogwarts?" Hermione said faintly.
But that was when all the other people started bustling into the room, and things began to get too crazy for a real answer.
-xxx-
"But already? On the first day back?"
Tina sighed and shook her head. "I don't know why you're even surprised any more. They're getting out everything they've wanted to do all summer, it just stands to reason - "
"Don't these behemoths have something better to do with their lives?" Kurt grumbled. "It's like telling the same joke over and over again at every party and expecting people to still laugh."
Mercedes took the paper towel from him and gently pushed him away. "Talk and walk," she said. "I can redo my makeup in the choir room but we're going to be late." She did her best to clean the artificial grape gunk out of her ear, and then started in on the stuff that was still sticking to her eyelids. She wouldn't even be mad, but this was a brand new weave she'd just had put in, in time to look fabulous for the first day of school. If it came out of this a hot worse-for-wear mess she was probably going to take the nearest opportunity to knock Azimio Adams in the nuts.
And maybe Sam Evans, too.
Mercedes bit her lip. While Kurt and Tina strode along beside her debating the finer points of incorporating rain slickers and other slush-resistant items into fashionable back-to-school looks, she continued to wipe her face and tried not to be angry for other reasons altogether. They'd gone all summer keeping it hush-hush, but Mercedes had thought that meant they'd conquered the first, ugliest obstacle and were going to make it publicly official now that school was starting again. But Sam had told her, in no uncertain terms, that he'd really like for it to stay on the dee-ell even now. Even when having a star football-playing boyfriend was sure to protect her from the worst of the teasing and slushying. And it's not like she wanted to throw his reputation around like that, but - why was he even with her, if he didn't want to look out for her like that? If he didn't want everyone to know?
"Why?"
"Because there is a definite difference between a trenchcoat and an overcoat," said Kurt, rolling his eyes and answering a different question entirely. "Some people, I swear." But they were at the choir room now, their little triad merging with Sam, Mike, Artie, and Brittany, the latter two making the world's most awkward faces at each other every time they thought no one was looking. Mercedes tried her hardest not to do the same.
"Hey guys," she said, smiling weakly and holding up the grey-purple paper towel wad as a badge of honor.
"Ouch," said Artie. Mike held up a soggy towel from the locker room, stained green in a similar way.
"They were going for Brittany but I was too fast," he said, smiling morosely. "Green looks way better on me."
"That's a lie, I look awesome in every color," said Brittany. "I'm just on a diet."
"Sorry, baby," said Tina, pushing over to him and hugging him into a semi-indecent kiss. "Mmmm, it's my favorite flavor though."
"I know," said Mike with a wink.
"Sorry about you too, Mercedes," said Sam. He took the paper towel from her hand and wiped across by her hairline, getting a bit she must have missed.
"It's no big deal," she said, and tried not to sound upset.
"What are you guys all just standing around for?" squawked a voice from down the center hall of their T-intersection. "Can't you see we're wasting valuable rehearsal time? Get in there!" And Rachel Berry bustled past them, her yellow bow-encrusted sweater streaked faintly orange down the back, and barreled through the choir room door, leaving it swinging on its hinges. The rest of them followed through shaking their heads, Kurt already back to bitching about the slushie epidemic.
"And you!" he said, making a beeline for Santana. "Where were you? Where were the Bullywhips? Aren't you supposed to be preventing this kind of behavior, isn't that the whole point of your so-called organization? If I'm not mistaken, weren't you required by Sue Sylvester to recruit at least three more - "
"Sue Sylvester can't require me to do caca, Ladylips," said Santana, not even looking up from where she was filing her nails in the back row. "I'm a lone wolf."
"Ah-wooooo," howled Brittany faintly.
"Guys, is no one else concerned about the four other random people standing in our choir room that we've never seen before?" Artie deadpanned.
Because, yeah. Two redheaded kids, a guy and a girl, and then this other girl who looked a little bit like Rachel (better clothes, worse hair) and a really short blond guy were kind of hovering up by the whiteboard looking awkward as hell. Artie had already kind of wheeled over to them, and Mercedes followed after, looking curiously at them looking curiously at her.
She made up her mind fairly quickly. "Hi," she said, extending her hand for a shake, "I'm Mercedes. Are you guys here to audition for New Directions?"
"Um, not exactly," said the red-haired girl, though she did take Mercedes's hand and politely shake it back. "We're just kind of - here by mistake."
Rachel frowned dramatically. "Why am not surprised? Look, if you're not here to sing then you might as well just get out, I'm not concerned with - "
"Rachel, be nice!" said Mercedes. "One slushie and you get your granny panties in a bunch, I swear. Where were you guys trying to go? I know this school like the back of my hand, I can get you anywhere. Hopefully frozen-drink free."
"Well, uh, we were hoping - "
"Rachel got slushied?" Mercedes turned to the door to see Finn, Puck, and Lauren heading through it, Finn crossing immediately to Rachel to survey the damage - though hers seemed to have been much milder than Mike's or Mercedes's. "I can't believe those guys. This'll come out, right?" (Mercedes couldn't help but notice that he turned his gaze slightly to Kurt when he said that. Kurt shook his head and mouthed throw it out right back.)
"Wait, who are these chumps?" asked Puck, tilting his head toward the four strangers as he took a seat in front.
"We're trying to figure that out but you chumps keep stampeding through and interrupting," said Mercedes, rolling her eyes. "Forgive them, they're insane."
"I've certainly seen my fair share of that," said the blond guy, in a high and vaguely not-American voice.
"My name is Ginny," said the redhead, and Artie chuckled a little.
"Bet you get crap for that a lot, yeah?"
She blinked at him. "For what?"
"Well, you know - long red hair, kinda skinny, and your name is - you know, like in Harry Potter?"
The brunette gasped. "Wait, but you're - you've heard of Harry Potter?"
Lauren snorted. "Lady, who hasn't heard of Harry Potter? It's made like, billions of dollars and you'd have to be kind of culturally blind. And deaf. And stupid."
"Well, I just thought - since you're Muggles and - "
"Hermione, don't you think this is getting a little ridiculous?" said the redheaded guy, leaning in to whisper to the other girl and - no. Really? He turned to them. "Look, there's been a mistake, and we just wanna get home. We're looking for my friend Harry. He's kind of about this tall - " he gestured parallel to the ground at about the neighborhood of his armpits - "and he's got like really messy hair and glasses. Once we find him, we're leaving, and we don't wanna cause any trouble or get in anybody's way. Okay?"
But Lauren had actually gotten up and crossed over to them now, and was scrutinizing the shorter girl's face from an inappropriately close distance. "Hang on a second," she mumbled. "If you're Ginny Weasley - " she pointed at the redhead without even looking at her, still fixated - "are you actually Hermione? And this is Ron, and this is - "
"Draco Malfoy, of course!" he said haughtily, and Artie laughed again.
"Okay, yeah, that's where you're losing me," said Lauren. "This is some great cosplay on the three of you, don't get me wrong, and you're super in-character and everything - I bet you two are actually dating, am I right? You can't fake that."
"Well, yes," said "Hermione," straightening up a little and pulling back from Lauren, adjusting the front of her sweater.
"See? Great! But you really should've tried to find a better Draco," she continued. "Everyone knows the real Draco should be about as tall as Ron and look amazing in leather pants. I don't believe you for a second."
"What - what are you insinuating?" demanded the blond kid, shouldering past Mercedes to stand toe-to-toe with Lauren and coming up not even to her nose. Mercedes shot a look at Artie, who just shrugged. "I daresay the Malfoy family name should carry quite enough weight for me, regardless of my trousers or my - my physical stature. What does a filthy Muggle know about anything anyway?" He glared hard up into Lauren's eyes and she stared incredulously back.
She shrugged and finally gave up. "Eh, I guess I can see why you picked this kid."
"Look, this isn't acting!" sputtered the Hermione chick, hands flapping. "I don't know how you know so much about the four of us, or about Harry, or why anyone would want to - to dress up as us, but my name is Hermione Granger and we are looking for Harry, we don't know where he ended up, so could you please - "
"If you're really Hermione Granger," said Sam suddenly, "prove it."
"What?" asked about six people.
"You know - do some magic, or something. Like Lumos or Expelliarmus or something."
"Ginny's" eyes went impossibly wider. "How do these Muggles know all of this?"
"I don't know," said Hermione, turning back to her.
"What are we supposed to do?" said Ron. "I think the rule about not doing magic in front of Muggles kind of goes out the window when they all seem to already know about it."
"Yes, but we're still not supposed to do magic outside of school - "
"We're in their school!" said Ginny.
"I love how they're talking about all of us like we're not even here," said Mercedes, grabbing the handles of Artie's chair and wheeling him back over toward the risers.
"Is it bad that I'm kind of used to it?" he muttered back.
"Oh for crying out loud, Granger, just do it already!" said Malfoy finally. "Look, I'll do it. No one's using this chair, are they?" He gestured to the empty seat between Finn and Puck before shoving up the sleeves of his oversized shirt and pulling out what even Mercedes had to admit was a super-legit-looking wooden wand from some pocket somewhere.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" he chanted, twirling the wand around, and then -
Shit. It actually happened.
The room let out a collective gasp as the chair flew into the air. It leveled out about a foot over Finn and Puck's heads, but it didn't look too stable, bobbing and weaving through the air as Draco guided it around the room a little bit faster than Mercedes thought was necessary. Hermione dropped her face into her hand, Ginny clapped and squealed and Brittany bounded up, trying to catch the legs of the chair as it whisked past her and Santana.
Draco was looking particularly pleased with himself until the chair swept past the open door to the choir room and clocked Mr. Schuester square in the face.
-xxx-
Blaine sat between Nick and Jonathan at the Warblers' senior council table. The rest of them, including two freshmen who'd been tapped for auditions today, sat around the rest of the room.
The person claiming to be Harry Potter sat in the middle right in front of him.
"I'm sorry, but this has to be a joke," said Trent, shaking his head and flapping his hand. "Nice try, Jeff, but we're not buying it."
"What - me?" said Jeff. "Look, guys, just because I found him wandering in the halls like this doesn't mean he's my responsibility, does it? It's not like the time that cat followed me home - "
"I don't think we should blame Jeff," said Jonathan evenly. "I don't think we should blame anyone. I'm just confused as to why someone would play this kind of joke in the first place."
"I'm telling you, it's not a joke," said the new guy. "I don't know where I am, how I ended up here, how you guys all seem to know my name when you're totally Muggles, but I'm definitely Harry Potter. It's not something I lie about." He adjusted his glasses, and the neat collar of his polo shirt. His face went a little smug.
"There's no such thing as Harry Potter," said Fletcher from the back of the room. "It's dumb kids' books and dumb kids' movies and the only good thing to come out of it is Emma Watson." Bernard fistbumped him and Blaine struggled not to roll his eyes.
"Hey!" said Jeff.
"Books? Movies?" said Harry. "That would be awesome."
"What if we make him do magic?" said Nick.
"I mean, I guess I could, but - "
"He obviously can't do magic," said Trent.
"Well what if we ask him something that only the real Harry Potter would know?"
"Also known as 'something only Jeff and Marcus would know because they're giant nerds'!"
"Guys!" said Jonathan, smacking the gavel once against the table. "The anti-bullying policy is still in full effect, okay?"
"But you can't possibly believe this!"
"I believe him."
Blaine felt every eye turn on him as the room fell silent. He rose from behind the council table and crossed behind Nick, heading to where Harry sat in the center.
"But - why, Blaine?" asked Trent, still mildly flabbergasted.
"Because," he said. "At the risk of pointing out the giant elephant in the room?" He glanced fleetingly over at Jeff, and Jeff was nodding. "He looks just. Like. Me." Blaine smiled. "And I know full well what my own face looks like when it's lying. And he's telling the truth." He stopped right in front of Harry and stuck out his hand for a shake, and Harry stood up, their eyes exactly even, their palms similarly sweaty when they met. "Blaine Anderson. Head Councilman for the Dalton Academy Warblers."
Harry shook it, nervous but strong. "Uh, Harry Potter. Chosen One." He clicked his teeth and Blaine laughed outright.
"Awesome. How'd you end up here, anyway?"
"You know, I haven't quite figured that out yet, unfortunately," he said. "Magic, man. It's kind of a bitch sometimes."
"Such language," muttered Trent, scandalized, but Blaine chose to ignore it.
"I can see where that might be an issue, yes. Is there any way we can help you get back to where you're going?"
"I mean, if there were I would totally tell you, but before I go anywhere I kind of need to find my friends. I have no idea where they ended up."
"Who, Ron and Hermione?" scoffed Fletcher.
Harry turned and stared at him, pulling a bitchface that, while it wouldn't even rival Kurt's on a bad day, was still pretty impressive. "Them and my girlfriend Ginny actually, is there a problem, man?"
"Just ignore Fletcher, please," said Jonathan.
"Why don't you just stick with me for now?" said Blaine. "We can tell people you're my cousin, if we have to, and no one will have to know and we won't have to sit through all of this again. And in the meantime, we'll do anything we can to help you find your friends. I promise."
"Uh, cool, thanks," said Harry. "So like, my friend Ron is about so tall, and with red - "
Blaine just laughed again. "Yeah, we know." He rocked back a step or two and addressed the rest of the room. "Well, Warblers, our first business meeting has been somewhat of a wash. You'll all report this afternoon to our first rehearsal and performance meeting and we'll get started on refreshing our standard material and generating a list of which songs to retire and which we might want to integrate new into our repertoire. We'll also be auditioning Gage and Jackson at that time. In the meantime, go to class, and it'd probably be best if we just pretended this whole thing never happened." He smiled out at them, and Jonathan swung the gavel twice to signal the end of the meeting before the room dissolved into murmurs and the rustling of bags and papers.
Harry frowned at him and shifted his weight to one hip, folding his arms. "So yeah, Mr. Head Councilman, about that whole thing where we've got the same face."
"Sorry?" said Blaine.
"That fake-ass smile you just plastered on for everyone?" said Harry. "You hate this."
Blaine faltered a little, but kept smiling back at him. "The Warblers have a stellar reputation here at Dalton, I love being part of such a great group."
Harry nodded his head back and forth a little and made a dismissive gesture. "Yeah, okay, the warbling thing, maybe. Music stuff, right?" Blaine nodded. "I totally feel you, music is awesome, even when everything else sucks. But that's the thing here. This school? Sucks."
"Dalton is a very prestigious - "
"Bite me," said Harry. "Hogwarts is prestigious. I should know, I kind of run that shit. But this is..." He looked slowly around at their practice room, and Blaine saw his eyes stop on the Warblers tapestry, the wide windows, the gavel. "This is stuffy is what it is. This is a stick up your ass and not in the fun way. You're suffocating here, Blaine." He laughed, kind of pathetically. "Loosen your tie."
Before Blaine could react much, Harry drew an honest-to-god wand from his pocket and flicked it in a sharp, tiny movement at Blaine's collar. Instantly the top button of his shirt popped open, and his tie slid down a couple of inches, still tied but slightly rumpled where it ducked back into his blazer. After a few seconds of contemplation, Harry swung the wand again, this time at his hair. Blaine's whole scalp prickled, and when he reached up to check what had happened, he found his head a mess of loose curls, his hair gel completely vanished. He smoothed his hand against it perhaps more slowly than he'd intended, and Harry's face (his face) broke out into a lopsided grin.
"Yeah," he said. "Feels great, doesn't it."
"I should probably head to class," said Blaine, giving Harry a smile - small, wry, and deliberately genuine. "Are you coming, or not?"
-xxx-
"So what exactly was the reasoning for sticking me with him, anyway?"
Sam groaned, hiking his backpack further up his shoulder and gritting his teeth a little. "Look, you and I look the most alike, so you're easiest to pass off as like, my stupid little brother or something. Plus I'm pretty sure I know the most about the Harry Potter series after like, Lauren and maybe Artie or Mike, so they were hoping I'd have a better handle on you," he said. "But clearly that's not going to happen." You know, considering Draco was basically only speaking directly to Kurt.
"But I don't want to go to your stupid Muggle classes with you!" Malfoy whined. "Can't I just stay in that room and hide out and just ignore the fact that all of you exist?"
"The two classes of the jazz ensemble have practice in there second and third periods," said Kurt, walking beside them, "and then Mr. Schue is in there grading papers sometimes. If he doesn't turn out to be concussed." Kurt side-eyed Malfoy hard. "Besides, everyone else had to go with someone, you saw. Hermione's with Rachel and Ginny's with Mercedes and Ron's with Puck - which if you ask me is just an explosive disaster waiting to happen - oh, she texted me back. Hm. No, Mercedes says she got to Halley's class and checked with all her regular gossip sources and no one's seen anyone like Harry at all. And if they haven't seen him, he isn't here. Those bitches be crazy."
Sam grit his teeth even harder and tried not to think about how much he would have liked to be kissing Mercedes right now. "I just hope he didn't end up too far away from here. Can't you guys contact him, somehow?"
"What, like you all just have owls sitting around waiting patiently should a wizard stumble into this Muggle mess? No-oh, you have to get all pointlessly complicated with your cellophane phones and Quirties and whatnot. Snore."
"Look, I'm not trying to be rude, but could you please, maybe, just shut up for a second and walk to class with us?" said Sam.
"You're doing a wonderful job considering you're not trying."
"Okay, seriously?" said Kurt. "I know you're kind of this snotty one-note character up until the sixth one or so but you could at least - hey, where do you think you're going?"
Because Malfoy had shot suddenly away from them and out into the crowd of students headed to second period, and was so small he would have disappeared into the sea of them if it weren't for his shock of bright blond hair. Sam was so over this already - couldn't this week of all weeks just have been normal - and he shouldered forward after him, not even bothering to see if Kurt was keeping up or just heading to bio lab without him. He knocked into a few people with his backpack, but he didn't even care - this Malfoy twerp was his responsibility now and Sam was damned if he was gonna disappear on him and wreak stupid magic havoc everywhere.
He finally got a hand clamped hard on Malfoy's shoulder right as his hand was reaching for the knob on the door to - the basement boiler room? What the heck? Malfoy winced in Sam's grip and was still spinning around to face him when Kurt caught up, his breathing a little heavy and his face stern.
"No," he scolded. "Absolutely not. I was trying not to treat you like a puppy that we need to keep on a leash at all times but if you're seriously thinking about trying to leave without the rest of them - "
"You're right!" said Sam suddenly. "Hermione said you guys got here by Floo powder, there's totally no fireplace in here at all. The closest thing would be the furnace. What the hell gives, man?"
Malfoy scowled. "Oh, come on, you're not serious? I ran into those losers by accident, on my way home from my grandmother's house. We didn't come here together and there's absolutely nothing that says we have to leave here together either. Just let me go, this is stupid." He shrugged Sam's hand off his shoulder hard. "Even you think it's stupid."
"Of course I think it's stupid," said Sam. "Doesn't mean you get to punk out on your friends."
"They're not my friends," Malfoy insisted.
"Either way!" said Sam. "You'd probably be boned without Hermione, anyway, you guys don't know if they fixed that thing or not and I wouldn't trust any of you to last two minutes without her brains."
"And furthermore," hissed Kurt, who was practically seething at this point, "you'd never forgive yourself for leaving behind people you care about." He exhaled sharply and his face set into something dark and impassive. "I know that from experience."
Malfoy shuffled his feet. "They're not my friends," he mumbled again, but there was no force behind it - no one would have believed him. He relaxed, a little, and when Kurt to head on to bio, Malfoy followed obediently behind, with Sam bringing up the rear. Kurt seemed more relaxed, too, laughing about a funny text Blaine had sent him.
But Sam, with the words leaving behind people you care about still thudding through his head, was as tense as ever.
-xxx-
Ron's hand was hovering on the handle to the passenger door of the beat-up, black-painted Cadillac, with his Muggle buddy-system friend already sliding into the driver's seat, before it occurred to him to ask.
"Dude, what are we doing?"
Puck leaned across the center of the bench seats to look up at him through the half-open window. "We're cutting class, bro! I got some weed and some sick new PS3 games back at my house, I wanna see what happens when a wizard gets baked. Now let's go before Buzzkill Becky Johnson catches us."
Ron shrugged, slid in, and adjusted his headband in the mirror on the underside of the sun visor. "Works for me."
-xxx-
to part two