Chapter Text
Chapter One: A Converging
"The four Potter sisters are leaving Britain?" said Poppy Pomfrey, her eyebrows rising at Minerva McGonagall in their latest meeting.
"Well, honestly, Poppy, can you blame them?" Minerva sighed. "They find out Sirius was their third parent in a secret magical fertility process between their parents before they were born. And that's why there are four of them, and they were all fraternal, and they were all born at the same time. Then they lose him in the war against Voldemort, and they win the war for us — each representing one House. They come back, they take their final and seventh year of magical training, and they even learn mind mage training and true transformational forms while they're at it. They don't have any reason to stay behind here, and they don't owe anything to us anymore.
"They're eighteen years old, fresh with an old family fortune, and yes, they are leaving Britain. I privately believe they are hoping to escape themselves a bit in what they have planned to do."
"And what are they planning to do?" said Poppy, still surprised.
"They are enrolling at a place in Muggle Seattle," said Minerva, "Oakley School for the Arts."
-
Lucifer Morningstar, sitting in a study in Los Angeles, sighed and pushed back suddenly from his desk one night. "What am I doing?" he demanded of himself, sounding horrified.
"Thought you were balancing checkbooks for the series of LA nightclubs you run," said Maze, sounding bored and playing with a knife on a black leather sofa nearby.
"I am retired," said Lucifer, sounding appalled, "and I am spending my retirement… doing bookkeeping."
He stood and left. Maze paused — rolled her eyes, stood and went after him.
"Is this the part where I ask you what you're planning on doing?" she asked.
"I," Lucifer declared, "am bored."
"Funny. When I feel like that, I go after a target or I have sex with someone. Sometimes it's the same person. Then it goes away," said Maze.
"I shudder to contemplate what this might mean, Maze, but not even sex is fixing this creeping malaise in every part of my life," said Lucifer.
Maze's eyebrows rose. "So what do you plan on doing?"
Lucifer picked up a magazine off the glass coffee table in the living room, near the piano. "This is a booklet full of things to do in other major cities in the United States," he said, and he grinned as he sat down on the sofa. "I open it up, close my eyes, and point."
Maze smirked. "I have to watch this," she said sarcastically, "because there's no way it could possibly go wrong."
Undaunted, Lucifer opened the magazine, closed his eyes, and pointed. He opened his eyes. "Huh," was the first thing he said.
"What did you get?" said Maze with a grin.
"An arts college in Seattle," said Lucifer, sounding curious. "Someplace called Oakley."
-
Eighteen-year-old Artemis Fowl was displeased as he packed in his family's Irish manor, almost as displeased as Butler was behind him in the doorway.
"I don't like that I can't go to this place with you," Butler declared.
"We've been over this," said Artemis crisply, but he sounded displeased. "The Irish Fowl fortune, by some miracle, stayed intact after Father's disappearance. We sent other search expeditions out after him, to no avail. Mother is sending me to an arts college in Seattle. She believes it will be good for me. That it will avert… quote-unquote, 'growing criminal tendencies.'"
"You know, technically you don't have to do what she says anymore," Butler reminded Artemis.
"I am aware. But she is frail in her mental recovery after Father's disappearance. I do not want to… upset her," Artemis admitted. He turned. "So I go," he said firmly.
-
Five Hargreeves was walking toward the Handler's office at the Commission, and he paused outside the door as he heard the name "Hargreeves." "So the Hargreeves situation has changed?" said a woman, sounding worried.
"Yes. Something unexpected happened. Their 'mother' died. I don't even know how that works," said the Handler, sounding irritable. "But apparently she left part of her section of the Hargreeves fortune to every sibling, including the dead or disappeared ones. She asked them in her will to 'do something with it.' It's totally fucked up the timeline. A nightmare, I can tell you that. I've sent Berkley out to correct things."
Five hurried down the hall, past the Handler's office and he saw Berkley walking ahead of him holding a briefcase. He took a risk, and tried something he'd never tried before.
He made his hands glow, and he tried to follow a briefcase through time and space. It echoed and echoed ahead of him, through all the glowing — he struggled and struggled —
Then it came out of time and space and he landed right on top of Berkley, knocking him unconscious. They were on a modern city street. A scrap of paper had come out of Berkley's coat pocket. Five grabbed up the scrap of paper, hurried down the New York city street — and stopped, staring in a shop window. He reached up to touch his face. He looked about… twenty?
He also looked intact. All things considered, with time travel involved, it could have gone worse. He turned away dismissively and kept walking. He looked down at the slip of paper.
"Oakley School for the Arts," he read. "So that's where the Apocalypse will be centered." And he kept walking.
Back in her office, the Handler was saying, "Afterward, Berkley is being sent toward one of those places that just keeps disappearing off of Commission technology."
Someone else burst into her office. "Ma'am, Five has gone on the run — and disappeared off of Commission technology! But the Apocalypse… remains intact." He sounded bewildered.
The Handler had half-stood, wide-eyed — and then she sat back and barked out a harsh, humorless laugh. "Oh, Five," she said, putting her head in a hand. "He followed the wrong part of Berkley's mission.
"And now we won't be able to track him or anyone immediately around him."
-
Five appearing at Grace's will reading stunned basically everyone in his family who had written him off as gone. His responses were short, clipped, and to the point — "I time traveled. I'm back. I'd like my money, and I'd like to leave."
"That's all you have to say?!" Diego demanded. All of his siblings were twenty, as in physicality now Five himself was.
"Five!" said Luther incredulously, standing.
Vanya still hadn't stopped gaping.
"Number Five, your family needs you to —!" Reginald began, and Pogo was frowning.
Five was impatient. He knew what his family needed. They needed to not die. Why the Commission hadn't already come after him was already a worrying puzzle.
"The money." This Oakley place was apparently expensive.
After the will reading, Klaus followed Five eagerly out of the New York City manor. "Hey! Hey, Five, so what's next for you?"
"Seattle," said Five shortly. "Why?"
Klaus shrugged. "Dunno what to do with this money besides blow it all on coke."
"Not my problem."
"Hey! Hey, I could go to Seattle with you!" said Klaus suddenly and eagerly.
Five stopped and stared. "To an arts college?" he said with an odd look.
Klaus actually laughed. "That's what you're going to do, after all this time? Go fulfill your secret dreams of becoming a ballet dancer? Hey, you do you, man!"
"I don't have time for this," Five muttered, and he kept walking, to a car he'd bought. Delores the mannequin was already in the passenger's seat.
"What's that mannequin doing there?" Klaus asked curiously.
"Her name is Delores," said Five, and now, yes, he actually seemed defensive.
"Whoa, okay, okay," said Klaus slowly, raising his hands and exchanging glances with the Ben only he could see.
"This might be good for you," said Ben encouragingly. "It would give you something to focus on. Something to do."
So Klaus shrugged and got in the back seat behind Five. "What?!" he said at Five's glare. "You didn't say no! I'm coming with! To this art college in Seattle!"
"… It's called Oakley," said Five sarcastically. "You should probably know the name if you're going to be enrolling there." And the car pulled away and drove off.