Chapter Text
For the first time in over two centuries, on one fine Monday morning, Lady Fate woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
It didn’t happen often, but by the very nature of how statistics worked, it was more common in her immortal life than you would think.
She sat up and yawned before spelling Herself entirely clean, head to toe. Any mortal wix would be struck jealous at her morning routine. She did still get dressed manually though; a holdover from a few millennia past, when the wix had been closer to the Deities.
She then slipped on a pair of open-toed sandals and nodded happily. She was ready for the rest of her day!
First up, taking care of the Abraxans.
A herd of these palomino-coloured winged horses—often incorrectly called pegasi in older myths—had wandered into her realm one day and had refused to leave. So, like any self-respecting amateur Magizoologist, she adopted the whole herd. Sue her; even if she could fly, riding an Abraxan (or any winged horse, for that matter) was so much fun!
She walked into the stable and struck up a casual conversation with one named Spartacus as she conjured a brush and began combing their manes. This led to a rather animated conversation about Sugar Quills and single-malt whiskey with the herd, and Fate promised to bring some the next time she visited Downstairs, a.k.a. the Mortal Realm.
After that promise, the herd seemed to calm down, and Fate took her leave and headed for her airstrip. Lady Magic had requested her audience (all too formally, as always) that morning and Fate had been looking forward to the meeting. Magic was always amazing to be around, and they hadn’t seen each other in over half a century! The three of them really should move in together at some point, and they would have already if something or the other didn’t always interfere.
She greeted Susan the Thestral with a bow and carefully climbed onto her back. She could have used an Abraxan or a Hippogriff, but a Thestral would get her there significantly faster.
She and Susan touched down at Magic’s home about fifteen minutes later to find that she was waiting for them outside it, wearing a bright smile that lit up the whole courtyard. Ah, if only Death were here too…
Magic pulled her into an unusually affectionate bear hug that Fate happily returned. They weren’t normally this affected by the passage of time, but with the violent wars that humanity seemed hell-bent on waging recently, the last fifty years had aged the Deities more than they had expected.
Aw, screw propriety! It had been so long! Fate pulled Magic into a deep and heated kiss, which simultaneously both enthused and amused the other Deity.
“Not that I mind, Moira, far from it,” Magic said, humming in pleasure, “but perhaps we could go inside first?”
Ah, right.
Moira, Mistress of Fate, blushed like a schoolgirl and nodded, taking her partner’s hand as she led them inside.
The interior of Magic’s mansion changed as Magic did, and a lot had changed in the last century or so since Moira had set foot here. New bits and bobs tended to appear suddenly in every room without warning every couple of weeks or so, depending on what caught Magic’s fancy.
Crack!
Like that. Exactly like the toy with extremely sharp teeth that had just appeared above them.
Moira raised an amused eyebrow at her partner. “Care to explain why a Fanged Frisbee just landed on the chandelier, Maya?”
Lady Magic, now identified as Maya, just shrugged. “I’ve been really into those British Zonko products recently for some reason. The chandelier is at least an acceptable place for it to appear. One of those Nose-Biting Teacups landed on my piano a month ago and utterly ruined the piece I was playing!”
Maya then teleported with Moira into the living room. “Now onto today’s entertainment!” she said, gesturing at the television.
“Let me guess, another TV show by the Magicless?” an amused Moira asked.
Maya almost nodded her head off in her excitement. “It’s about these three toddlers who are genetic experiments. And they have superpowers! It technically doesn’t air for another two months or so, but you don’t mind, right?”
“I…” Moira began before spotting the puppy eyes Maya had always been so good at weaponizing.
Damn it, anything but those eyes!
Moira sighed. “Alright…”
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Maya eeped in glee, planting a fiery kiss on Moira’s lips and leaping towards a remote. Moira blanked out for a couple of seconds before slowly returning to consciousness.
“Only you, Maya,” Moira said, sighing wistfully. “Only you would create an anachronism for a TV show. But yes, I’ll overlook it for the first season. Not the rest though, alright?”
Once again, Moira couldn’t help but wish that their remaining lover was here. Speaking of her…
“What about Mara? Shouldn’t we wait to watch this until we meet with her tomorrow?”
“No!” Maya exclaimed, pinning a half-hearted glare on Moira. “She watched The Lion King on her own four years ago. She deserves to die for that! Since I haven’t succeeded in killing her just yet, I’ll settle for watching the first episode of this show without her.”
Moira chuckled. “I almost forgot about that! How are your plans to kill the literal personification of Death going?”
“Horribly!” Maya wailed dramatically. “Her being so sweet and caring makes it even harder!”
“Oh, Maya! Never change.”
And so, the two sat in front of the TV, watching shows for hours on end, before laying down to sleep.
Moira awoke with a start. Something had roused her from her siesta.
Normally she’d be mad about this. It was Tuesday evening now, and she hated Tuesdays; always so boring in the grand scheme of things. But oddly enough, today she didn’t feel the monotony that she normally did. No, today she felt dread instead. She was forgetting something, and she rarely forgot things.
It wasn’t whiskey collecting day for the Abraxans yet; that wasn’t for another week.
It wasn’t her monthly junk collecting day, that wasn’t for two weeks.
It definitely wasn’t her polycule’s anniversary; that was overmorrow, and both she and Maya planned to celebrate it at Mara’s place.
So, what was—
Oh.
Oh dear!
She quickly spelled on a set of clothes from Maya’s wardrobe, wrote a quick note in case her lover woke up and began worrying about her, and promptly blinked out of existence.
She reappeared in the Mortal Realm, in the middle of the Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, just as the Hall’s double doors opened and the first-years shuffled in.
This was not the first time she had been here, but she was normally here just to watch. She didn’t usually care about interfering in human affairs—given their general proclivity for idiocy as a species—but today her four Chosen had arrived! Even if she could only nudge the timelines or use mundane spells, she had to meddle. More than she already had, that is.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, as always, spotted her immediately and simply smiled. She had no idea what the Headmaster thought she was, but every time she had appeared here before, she had been benevolent, so he hadn't seemed to care too much. Maybe he thought she was a ghost since she would probably appear transparent under his gaze. A question for another time, perhaps.
The Sorting Hat sang his usual song with much aplomb and everyone in the hall applauded when it ended. Even Moira could admit that he sang well, though she thought the performance could do with some accompaniment. Perhaps a piano or a violin? Maybe a theremin?
She watched in quiet amusement as the gears in the first-years’ heads turned and they realized what was going to happen. She then conjured a seat and sat down, just barely concealed by one of the four long tables.
It was showtime.