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Chapter Text

“ACCIO!!”

The shiny firebolt flew across the room and landed perfectly in his outstretched hand. He smiled grimly, satisfied, but sooo bored .

Harry Potter had been practicing this same dumb spell for hours . He looked over at Hermione with a raised eyebrow. Satisfied? he silently communicated. 

She shook her head at him. He sighed. Of course she wasn’t satisfied. Not that he blamed her, the task would take place in just two days. 

“Harry!!!” Hermione shouted.

Harry jumped as if struck and looked at her in surprise. “Goodness Hermione,” he said massaging his ears, “I’ll need to be able to hear the dragons you know.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and huffed in exasperation. “Harry, I’ve called your name at least five times.”

“Oh, sorry,” Harry responded sheepishly. He had been thinking about the task again. It kept him up at night, and he barely had any sleep. He was just in his fourth year of Hogwarts! And he was supposed to fight dragons?! He shuddered thinking of what he had seen in the forest with Hagrid. 

Hermione sighed and looked at Harry in concern. “You know, we can take a break if you need to. Maybe you can play that barbaric chess game with Ron or something.”

Harry forced a laugh, “Yeah, right. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Ron hasn’t exactly played chess since first year. And I’m fine. Really . Let’s just… get this over with.”

“Okay…” Hermione still looked worried, but she raised her wand. “This time, try using a smaller downward flick when doing the spell. It will help with speed and accuracy.”

“I don’t know what we’d do without you, Herminoe,” Harry laughed.

“You’d fail every class and be dead several times over,” she said without missing a beat. She smiled to show she was kidding… mostly. “Now, practice that motion several times. And while you’re at it, you should practice flying a little more, you always seem to end up injured whenever you so much as touch a broom.”

“Hermione! You know that its not my fault!!” Harry said annoyed. “Remember..”

“Harry, I was joking . Now practice.”

Harry groaned. It was going to be a very long day. 

~~~

Keefe groaned in frustration and flopped back on his bed. Hundred of drawings and hastily scribbled notes were tacked up on the wall with strings connecting them. He had spent hours trying to figure out something, anything . But with no success. 

He grimaced as another wave of pain shot through his head. One effect of the fathomleaves were the severe headaches that followed. Add that to the crazy dreams about fluffy pink ponies and it almost wasn’t worth it. 

Maybe Sophie was right, and it wasn’t worth it at all. He had managed to collect a fragment of something, even if he wasn’t sure what it meant. But it hadn’t been helpful. 

Keefe sighed. He knew he couldn’t stop. If it wasn’t for him, Sophie would not have been hurt. If it wasn’t for him…

He crumbled the drawing in his fist and threw it in the waste basket. In the course of a few weeks, everything had changed. His mom was evil, he was some kind of experiment/possible murderer, and now he was living in the Black Swan’s secret hideout accomplishing nothing while his crush and his best friend stared into each other’s eyes every day. Yup. Livin the dream. 

The only highlight to the whole adventure was the discovery of Mr. Snuggles, Fitz’s stuffed dragon. 

And the window sleepovers. 

Keefe looked over to where Sophie lay fast asleep on the other side of the window. The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. It was so hard. He was falling in love with her more and more each day. But there was no way she would ever like him the same way. Nor should she, with all the uncertainty ahead. 

His smile fell. 

He looked over at the time. 3:00am. Great. Just four more hours until Mr. Forkle would start breathing down his neck about reading dumb Empath books. Sometimes he just wished he could live in a whole different reality. 

~~~

Hermione had left a while ago. Harry was freaking out. He had been practicing this spell over and over, but then he had started thinking, what if riding a broom was a bad idea? There was little chance that he could outfly a dragon. Would they be chained up? Or left free? What would he actually have to do, fight it? How could he fight it with a broomstick? 

Harry was currently under his invisibility cloak in the restricted section of the library. Fortunately, no sign of Filch yet. Unfortunately, he had had no luck on finding a book titled How to Defeat Enormous Scary Dragons . 

Maybe he could try summoning the sword of Gryffindor instead, but he was fairly sure the sword didn’t work that way. A regular sword might work. 

Images of roasted knights in shining armor fileted by dragons quickly changed his mind.

How on earth did he get himself into these situations?

Harry sighed, about to give up. The clock in the library said 3:00am. He needed to go to bed to prepare for a full day of practicing Accio again. 

He was thankful for Hermione’s help, no matter how much he complained. And Ron’s moral support (he wasn’t much good at giving advice on spells). He was glad that he at least knew about the task ahead, but he also wished that the champions were working together instead of competing. It would be nice to ask the more experienced students like Cedric for advice. It’s not like he could ask Dumbledore and throw Hagrid under the bus for telling him about the dragons. 

As he prepared to leave, he spotted a book in the corner that he hadn’t noticed before. He couldn’t quite make out the title, but it seemed to be… calling him somehow.

Creepy.

Harry hadn’t been in touch with the Muggle world in a few years, but before Hogwarts he used to read a bit. And he had read enough books to know that you never , under any circumstances, move towards a sketchy object that seems to want you to go near it. 

But…

He did need advice…

And this was Hogwarts, so, shouldn’t the library books at school be safe?

Then again, this was Hogwarts.

And he had almost died here more times than he could count.

So, maybe he should just leave it alone.

He moved closer to the book. The desire to open it was almost unbearable now. He could almost hear Hermione in his ear, “Harry, don’t touch that its in the restricted section . I’ve read countless books where so and so touches something and ends up dead, dismembered, expelled… ”

Well, Hermione wasn’t here now. 

Harry slowly reached out, grabbed the book, and…

Nothing happened. 

Harry let out a breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding, and flipped through the pages. There was nothing about dragons. Just a few weird pictures of a bunch of creatures he had never heard of before. But there was no surprise there. It would take him decades to catch up with the different aspects of the magical world.

Disappointed, he put it back on the shelf, gathered up his things, and went back to his room.

~~~

Dex was in his room working through some of the files he had accessed on the Twiggler. Most of it was boring legal jargon. But he had to read every single one in case he missed something important. 

His eyes were drooping. It was almost 2:00 in the morning. But he felt so close .

“Just a few more,” he muttered to himself. “Just in case.”

Tam mumbled in his sleep and and made a bunch of loud snoring noises. Dex winced. The last thing he needed was a grumpy Tam. 

He clicked through a few more files. He paused on one he hadn’t noticed before, called Hogwarts .

What was Hogwarts? Sounded unpleasant.

He tried to open it but it was locked. Dex smiled. A challenge. That meant that whatever Hogwarts was must be important. 

After working on it for a solid hour, he had still made zero progress. Dex was no longer smiling. He had tried everything related to both hogs and warts to try and crack the code, but to no avail. 

“Ugh!” he groaned softly. Sometimes he hated being a Technopath. 

“ Dex …”

Dex froze. It was Tam. Maybe if he didn’t move…

“Dex!” Tam said louder this time.

Please go back to sleep, please go back to sleep, please…

Tam turned around completely. His bangs were super fluffy, his clothes wrinkled, and his face covered in a scowl. Dex winced. This was going to be fun.

Tam stared straight into Dex’s frightened eyes and took a deep breath. “Look, Dex.” He sat up in his bed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “We’re pals. Right?”

“Right…” Dex said hesitantly. 

Tam nodded, satisfied. “Good, that’s good to hear.” He looked off into the distance, seemingly content. Dex let out the breath he had been holding. 

“THEN WHY…!!!!!???” Tam suddenly shouted.

Dex jumped five feet in the air and let out a (rather embarrassing) yelp of surprise.

“WHY ARE YOU KEEPING ME UP EVERY SINGLE NIGHT??!?!?!?!”

Tam jumped out of bed and headed straight for Dex. Dex hurriedly backed into the corner of the room breathing heavily, eyes wide.

“HOW COME EVERY TIME I TRY TO SLEEP, YOU TAKE DELIGHT IN TORTURING ME?!?! IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR YOU TO BE CONSIDERATE??!? IS IT TO MUCH FOR YOU TO THINK OF SOMEONE OTHER THAN YOURSELF?!?! ”

Dex bolted for the closet and pulled the door shut. “I’m so dead, I’m so dead, I’m so dead…” he muttered to himself. Suddenly sharing a room with the triplets didn’t seem so bad. 

Tam ran to the closet door and started banging on it with his fist. Each hit sent dust flying down from the ceiling into Dex’s hair. 

“Tam!” Dex shouted, covering his head. “I’m sorry, alright!?”

“ NOW YOU’RE SORRY!!” Tam yelled. “NOW THAT I’M AWAKE !!” Tam stopped hitting the door, and said in a calmer voice, “look Dex, there’s no need for you to get so dramatic. Just… make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Tam paused, waiting for a response. “Dex?” Nothing. “Maybe I scared him a bit too much…” Tam smirked.

Suddenly, a blinding light exploded from Dex’s device on the floor, then nothing. Tam was not amused.

“Dex!?” Was that your idea of payback? Because you’re shiny little light isn’t going to scare me.” Still no response. Tam was getting a little freaked out now. He still didn’t know Dex all that well, maybe he fainted in the closet or something. 

“Dex, look, I’m sorry for yelling.” No response. He tried again. “I was kidding… mostly. Can you come out of the closet now? I don’t have a knife or anything. And I won’t use my creepy shade powers on you. Dex?”

Still hearing nothing, Tam opened the closet. Dex, who had been leaning against the door, fell out flat on his face, snoring loudly. Tam winced when he hit the floor. “I guess he fainted then. Or fell asleep.” He looked at the time. It was really late. 

“Hey, Dex,” Tam nudged him with his foot. He barely moved. “DEX!!” Tam kicked him, hard.

Dex woke up with a snort and looked at Tam stupidly. 

“Finally,” Tam groaned. “You know, Dex, I’m going to tell everyone that you fainted in the closet.”

“Huh?” Dex asked groggily. He looked around in confusion. He looked up at Tam and asked, “who’s Dex?”

Chapter Text

The instant Keefe woke up, he knew something was horribly wrong. Ever so carefully, he raised his hand in the air… 

… and WHAM!! he smacked his forehead as hard as he could. 

“No, no, no…” Keefe was panicking. He grabbed at the stringy, greasy, slimy mop on his head. “No, this can’t be happening.”

He pushed back the covers on his bed (were they always that ugly green color?) and jumped up as fast as he could. 

“First my dad is a jerk,” he said out of breath as he grabbed a random robe he found. “Then my mom turns out to be an evil maniac,” he continued as he shoved his arms through the sleeves. “I possibly committed a murder or am part of an evil plan,” he said as he kicked his feet through a pair of pants he didn’t remember packing, “and now , on top of all that, there’s something wrong with my hair !!!”

Keefe looked around the room frantically. “Who moved the mirror!?” He turned to a random kid accusingly. “And where are all my products!?”

“Um… uh…” the kid stuttered. 

“Nevermind,” Keefe sighed. He took a deep breath. “Just… I need some alone time.” The kid, and two others he hadn’t noticed at first scrambled out of his room as fast as they could. 

Weird. The Black Swan must have a few more new recruits. But why were they all staying in his room? And why were all the beds enormous? And how did he miss them since he was up most of the night?

Whatever. First things first. Keefe finally found a hairbrush and attacked the horrible mop on his head with a vengeance. He looked around the room trying to find a mirror. 

He frowned in annoyance. Why were all his drawings and notes missing? Maybe Mr. Forkle…

The thought left him as he finally spotted a mirror. Giving a sigh of relief, he sat down on the chair and looked in the mirror.

The entire Slytherin house told stories about the banshee screaming in Draco Malfoy’s room for a week afterwards.

~~~

Dex woke up in a cold sweat and stared at the ceiling. Tentatively, he checked to see that he was still breathing. He moved his arms, and he swung his legs over the bed. Good. Tam hadn’t killed him. Yet. That was the last time he would ever stay up past midnight when Tam was around.

Still shaking slightly, Dex got up and stretched his arms. He looked around his room in confusion. Weird. He didn’t remember it being so… circular. And red. He frowned as he noticed three extra beds. Did the Gnomes do some remodeling during the little bit of time he was asleep?

On tiptoes, he went over to the bed next to him and pulled back the curtain. It was Tam. And he was asleep with his face buried in his pillow. Dex sighed in relief, then froze as Tam started moving. “Oh no, please no…” Tam stretched with a yawn and reached for the desk next to him. 

Why did he grab a pair of glasses? Did Tam wear glasses?

Tam picked up the glasses and put then on his face, then smiled blearily at Dex. 

Since when did Tam smile?

Dex stared at him in confusion. “Dude,” Dex said bluntly, “those glasses are really not doing any favors for you.”

“Excuse me?” he asked, frowning.

“It could just be the weird lighting in this new room, but you look a little shrimpier than normal…” Tam just stared at him. Well, it seemed like he wasn’t going to beat him up, so Dex continued. “I just… I don’t think the glasses are doing you any favors. It kinda ruins the whole ‘cool emo vibe’ that you had going on. And your face . Why is your face lumpy? And what happened to the silver in your bangs? And why is there a scar on your forehead? And…”

Dex stopped short. The kid staring at him in obvious confusion and concern was not Tam . Oops. 

“Ron,” the kid asked in an interesting accent. “Are you alright?”

Ron? Who in the Lost Cities was Ron? Dex took a deep breath and looked around the room. A few tired looking kids, no, humans, he realized were laughing at him. Feeling a deep sense of foreboding, Dex reached up and felt his face. It was bigger than he remembered. He looked at his hands, and looked down at the ground. He was taller too. 

“Ron?” the kid asked again. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Trying not to panic, Dex answered, “yeah… yeah. Whew! Bad dream,” he laughed nervously. He decided it would be smarter to play along until he knew more about… well… about whatever on earth was going on.

The kid was still giving him a weird look. Dex tried to smile in a reassuring way. Finally, the kid got out of bed and put on a robe. “Well,” he said, “you’d better start getting ready for class.”

“Class?” Dex squeaked. The kid raised an eyebrow. “Oh!” Dex said hurriedly. “Class! Right… um…” he thought for a minute. “I think maybe I’ll skip class today. I’m feeling… sick! Yes. I feel really sick.” Dex put his hand on his stomach and let out a few pathetic groans and looked at the kid to see if he bought it. 

He did not look impressed. “Ron, you’ve never skipped potions before, not since first year when Professor Snape made you write a twelve page essay for each absence.”

Drat. “Right…” Dex said. “I was kidding!! Ha ha! Fun joke?” he winced. 

“Sure…” the kid said. “Well, hurry up and get ready so we can head down to breakfast.”

Dex grabbed a pair of pants, a shirt, and a long flowing cape-dress thing and changed as fast as he could. This was going to be a very… interesting day.

~~~

Dex grabbed a bowl of what looked like rotten mush and sat down next to the kid. He nervously tapped his fingers on the table and looked around at the dining hall of the castle that he had somehow managed to appear in. He was impressed. Most human houses (from what he had seen) were nowhere near this big. 

“Ron! How’s it going!”

Dex yelped, startled, as two identical looking humans punched him from behind and mussed his hair. The kid with the glasses that he had followed to breakfast barely held in his mush as he laughed at his reaction. Dex gave a weak smile. 

“Never gets old,” one of the kids smirked. They must be twin brothers, Dex thought, like Tam and Linh. 

“You would think ,” the other added, “that since you’ve known us your whole lives you wouldn’t get scared so easily.” He grinned at Dex and joined him at the table with some mush of his own. 

“Fortunately,” the first twin continued, “Ron has the constitution of an old lady muggle,”

“the bravery of a dead mouse,” the second said, 

“and poise the likes of which has only been topped by Hagrid after drinking a whole tankard of mead,” the first one finished with a grand bow to top it off.

At a loss, Dex attempted, “yup that’s me. Easily scared… heh heh…”

The twins looked at him in absolute bewilderment, then they looked at the glasses kid. 

“Harry,” the first one started. Finally! Dex had a name he could use. Harry. He would have to remember that one, apparently they were supposed to be good friends. 

“Harry, has Ron been… you know…” the second twin continued, and mimicked a drinking motion.

“Youngest boy, you know,” the first twin added. “We see it all the time. They think they don’t get enough independence,”

“love,”

“etcetera,”

“so they end up being the ultimate disappointment of the family,” the second one finished. “We thought it would be us, but Ron, if you’re willing to take the fall for us,”

“we would willingly give it to you,”

“from the bottoms of our hearts,” he finished.

Dex hid his head in his hands. He was the worst actor ever . Thankfully, Harry stepped in. “No, Ron has not been drinking. He’s just been having an off day,” he said. “Probably tired from studying for potions last night.”

Dex shot Harry a grateful look. The twins (his brothers apparently?) just shrugged and started eating their porridge. 

After a little bit of an awkward silence, one of them asked, “So, how is the preparation for the task going?”

“We’re still bummed you didn’t tell us your secret for getting past the Goblet of Fire,” the second one added. “But we respect you for it. To think! We’ll actually have a chance at a Gryffindor winning the Triwizard Tournament!”

Harry groaned. “Why does no one believe me! I didn’t put my name in the Goblet of Fire! Someone’s probably just trying to get me killed. Fred, George, you have got to stop telling people that it was me! It’s making me really unpopular.” Harry glanced at all of the Potter Stinks badges flashing at him from around the cafeteria. He looked at Dex, puzzled. “Come to think of it, you’ve been kind of a jerk to me the past few days about it. Did you finally come to your senses?”

Dex blinked. Goblet of Fire? Gryffindor? Triwizard Tournament? Tasks? Someone trying to get Harry killed? This all sounded dangerous. What on earth was going on? Humans were weird. He noticed Harry was still staring expectantly at him. What had he asked? Oh yeah, something about him being a jerk. “Um… sorry,” he said. 

Harry raised an eyebrow. 

Dex tried again. “Sorry for… um… not believing you? Getting killed sounds… so not cool.”

Harry was about to say something, but thankfully (Fred? Or was it George?) interrupted. “Ron is always a big jerk,” Fred (he thought it was Fred) said. 

“Yeah,” George added. “Just give him a few weeks to simmer and soon he’ll forget why he was even mad in the first place.”

“Thanks,” Dex said dryly. Thinking of how he would act around his own siblings he added, “you guys are honestly the worst.”

Fred grinned. “There’s the crab apple we all know and love.”

Harry still looked like he wanted to talk more, but he was interrupted by silence. 

The entire cafeteria had stopped talking.

Fred and George were both gaping openly. Harry looked like he was about lose it. 

Dex followed their line of sight. Everyone seemed to be staring at a collection of kids dressed in green. 

And at the very center, was a blonde kid with very familiar looking hair. 

No. Way. 

Dex’s eyes widened in shock as someone who had to be Keefe Sencen sauntered into the room with his signature smirk and said, 

“Did someone say Draco Malfoy ?”

Chapter Text

Harry almost lost his porridge, because what in the freaking world was going on !?!?!

Draco had good hair. Like really good hair. What, did he finally go to a professional barber instead of letting his mommy cut it? Harry grinned. He looked like the lead singer of a boy band. He’d have to point that out to Hermione later. 

Draco snapped at Crabbe and Goyle, and hastily whispered in their ears. Then he said, “The Great Draco Malfoy, ruler of Hogwarts, has decided to grace you with my presence this fine day.” 

Fred and George snorted next to him. Since when did Draco talk in third person? Harry watched in disbelief as he walked over to the food line and looked at the (not so great looking) options. 

“The Great Draco Malfoy,” he said in a theatrical voice, “is highly displeased. Servants!” he clapped. Crabbe and Goyle rushed to his side. “Please make me a Mallowmelt.”

Mallowmelt? What? Harry frowned. Probably a fancy rich wizard dessert. Crabbe whispered into Draco’s ear, probably to tell him that there was no Mallowmelt, because Draco announced, “Then, I suppose, I must settle for whatever it is you are having. Though let it be known that I will require Mallowmelt in my chambers later this coming midday.” 

The whole things was completely ridiculous. At least, most people seemed to think so. Ron was holding his head in his hands not even watching it was so bad. The twins were whispering prank ideas to each other, and everyone else just looked mildly annoyed. But the Slytherins were rushing to obey his every command. It was sickening. 

Draco motioned for his fans to sit down, and then joined them at the Slytherin table. He brushed his hands through his perfect hair and flashed a smirk at Harry when he caught him watching. Harry raised an eyebrow. Draco ignored him.

Turning to the twins, he said, “Did anyone else think that was… strange?”

“The new hairdo, speaking in the third person, or the upbeat attitude?” Fred asked. “Because my answer is yes to all of those.”

“I’ll… talk to him,” Ron said, rising from his chair. 

Harry froze in disbelief. “Talk to Draco ? Draco Malfoy? ” Seriously, was everyone going insane today?

“Ooooo!!” The twins said in unison. “Getting a little feisty Ron,” George smiled. “Careful what you do to the punk, if you give him a bloody nose he’ll call his daddy.”

Harry relaxed marginally. But Ron looked slightly confused. “We don’t like Draco,” Ron stated. But the way he stated it, it almost seemed like a question. 

“ No , we don’t like Draco!” Harry threw up his hands in exasperation. “Goodness Ron, I know you haven’t learned that much at Hogwarts, but I thought don’t like Draco would be a lesson that stayed in your thick skull!”

“Sorry,” Ron mumbled. “Must have forgotten.”

Harry smacked his forehead, then started laughing. “You must be having a go at me.” He sighed, relieved. “That was a good one Ron, you really had me for a bit there.”

Ron’s ears turned red in embarrassment. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, then, thinking better of it, closed it. He just chuckled nervously.

Harry was sick of everybody acting like they had lost their minds. Man, he really needed to talk to… wait…

“Has anybody seen Hermione?” Harry asked looking around. Hermione was never late. Ever . And potions would be starting in just five minutes. 

The Ron and the twins just shrugged. 

Harry scrunched up his brow, confused. Maybe she was already in potions. She probably just skipped breakfast to get some extra studying in. 

~~~

Great. This was perfect. Just fantastic. 

How was he supposed to talk to Keefe (at least, he was pretty sure it as Keefe…) now? His character Ron was apparently supposed to hate this Draco Malfoy person. 

And Keefe was acting like a complete idiot. Dex took a calm steadying breath. He had no idea where they were, or how to get home. He didn’t even know if these people were safe. They seemed nice enough, but something felt off. They were different, somehow from the other humans he had interacted with or watched movies about. 

Dex rolled his eyes in annoyance as Keefe/Draco interacted with the kids dressed in green. He had their complete attention as he wildly mimed throwing Goblin stars. Keefe was probably telling about the time he fought all the Neverseen members when Sophie had to meet Mr. Forkle for the first time. And the other kids were in complete awe of him. 

Well, maybe this Draco Malfoy person had been dense too, because he wasn’t drawing too much suspicion from his own friends. Harry was frowning though. 

“Ron, we should get going.” Harry tapped Dex on the shoulder and motioned for the corridor. Dex snapped out of his reverie and nodded dumbly at him. He gathered up his books and followed Harry. 

Dex cast one last glance at the probably Keefe. He would have to find him after Potions class. Whatever that was. 

~~~

“What do you mean ‘who’s Dex?’” Tam asked, annoyed. 

Dex squinted up at him. “Who’re you?”

Tam face palmed. He couldn’t take much more of this. “Look,” he said, tiredly, “it’s late. It’s the middle of the night. Let’s just go to sl--”

“Where the blazers am I?” Dex interrupted. Tam just gave him a blank look. 

Dex scrambled up, looking around the room in awe. “This is some dream,” he laughed. “Crikey.” He looked outside taking in the beauty of Alluveterre. He glanced back at Tam. “You know, usually my dreams aren’t quite this pleasant. Most of the time its spiders. Or people turning into spiders.” His face took on a slightly panicked expression. “You’re not gonna turn into a spider, are you?” He took a step back from Tam.

Tam groaned. Why couldn’t he have just shared a room with Linh? He didn’t need to “make friends” with the other guys. He had never needed friends before. Why should he need them now? He would have to try a new tactic.

“Awright Dexy,” he said in a baby-talk voice. “Wet’s go on to beddy by now. Come on!” he grabbed Dex’s blanket off the bed and chucked it at his face as hard as he could. “We need to get owr whittle wrest now.”

“But I’m not…” Dex tried. 

“La la la!!” Tam put his fingers in his ears. “I can’t hear you! Trying to sleep!” he crawled into his bed.

“But…” he tried again.

“Nope. Good night. If you say anything else,” Tam left the threat hanging and made a slicing motion across his neck. Then he put on the covers and turned over pulling the blankets over his head. 

~~~

Ron was confused. 

He waited for five more minutes after the kid had gone to sleep, waiting to see if he would turn into a spider. 

He didn’t. Also, he usually didn’t dream about people he had never seen before. 

This kid didn’t look familiar at all.

Something wasn’t right. 

And why did he keep calling him Dex? What kinda name was that?

Maybe he was having a vision. Like the ones Harry had. Excited by the thought, he looked around, waiting for something to happen. 

He waited.

And he waited.

The kid just kept snoring. 

Ron sighed in disappointment. Stupid Harry. Dumb ‘chosen one’ rubbish. Ron should have known better than to think he would get a magic vision. 

But if it wasn’t a vision… 

Ron pinched his arm as hard as he could, and bit back a groan. It hurt. So, not a dream then either. 

He glanced quickly around the room, his breaths coming in short panicked gasps. Okay… not a dream. And he was definitely not at Hogwarts either. 

“I swear, if Fred and George are ‘avin a go at me…” Ron mumbled under his breath. 

Well, he thought, might as well look around and see what’s going on.

~~~

“Sophie,” a voice called.

Hermione buried herself under the covers. Why couldn’t her roomates be quiet in the mornings? Just five more minutes…

“Sophie,” a voice said, directly in her ear. Hermione sighed and opened her eyes.

“AAaaaahhh!” She screamed, scrambling backwards as fast as she could. Her hair caught in a bunch of flowers? that were all over the top of her bed. 

A house elf, at least she assumed it was a house elf, was next to her bed looking very confused. But it was made of wood…?

“Sophie?” the thing asked her. “Are you… alright?”

Hermione slowly slide back down her bed and studied the thing in front of her. None of the books that she had read had mentioned creatures like this…

The elf-tree thingy moved closer and placed her hand on Hermione’s head. Hermione flinched, and the elf-tree thing took a step back looking slightly hurt. 

Hermione shook her head and took a deep steadying breath. “I’m sorry,” she told the thing, attempting a smile. “Just a… nightmare is all.”

The elf-tree shook her head knowingly. “I’m sorry I can’t do more to help you with the nightmares. I had hoped the flowers would make some difference. I can sing to them more tonight to help them grow.”

Hermione blinked at her. What?

Maybe she should just go along with it. A quick glance around her room told her that she was not at Hogwarts anymore. Better to find out more before revealing anything. 

“That would be… so great,” Hermione managed. “Thank you,” she added.

The elf-tree nodded, pleased. She said, “I just wanted to wake you for breakfast, and then Mr. Forkle wants you to work some more with Fitz on your telepathy exercises.”

Telepathy?

“Thanks,” Hermione said calmly. “I’ll be right down.”

As the elf-tree left, Hermione closed her eyes and leaned back against her bed. Magical mysteries always happened at the worst times. Professor Snape was going to kill her for missing Potions. 

Chapter Text

“Hey, Crabbe, lend me your textbook real quick. What chapter are we doing today?” 

“Um… I don’t know…” Crabbe stuttered.

“Goyle?” Keefe tried. 

“Sorry boss,” Goyle said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Don’t you guys ever study?” Keefe asked. 

“Nope,” Crabbe and Goyle said in unison.

“Awesome. Next time we’re ditching.” Keefe missed Crabbe and Goyle’s open-mouthed expression. He was also completely oblivious to the tall dark-cloaked man standing right behind him. 

“What’s that Malfoy ?” an oily voice sneered. Keefe jumped, startled, but when he looked up he couldn’t hold back a snicker.

The man was not amused. He arched an eyebrow at Keefe. “You think skipping class is fun ,” he hissed. “Perhaps then you will also enjoy a twenty page paper on the properties of Dittany in potions-making. Due tomorrow .”

“I’m so sorry, really sorry,” Keefe laughed, grinning. “You just… I used to have a teacher…” he broke off seeing the thunderclouds over the professor’s head. He coughed, lost the smile, and cleared his throat. “I’m very sorry, Professor, sir.”

“Yes…” The Professor was still giving him an odd look. He turned away from Keefe, put his hands together, and walked towards the front of the class. “I will now take attendance, starting backwards with Mr. Ron Weasly…”

As the professor called the role, Keefe leaned over and whispered, loudly, in Crabbe and Goyle’s ear, “he reminds me very much of my teacher from my old school Mrs. Dame Alina.” Crabbe and Goyle quickly stifled laughter. A redhead kid, and a kid with glasses on the other side of the classroom laughed too. 

“Twenty points from Gryffindor, each ,” the Professor said. “For sheer disrespect.” There was a series of groans from that side of the classroom. 

The kid with the glasses gave Keefe a dark look. Sheesh. It was just a joke. Keefe shrugged his shoulders and mouthed sorry . The kid’s eyes went wide. He stared at Keefe then looked away in confusion. 

“Miss Hermione Granger,” the teacher was still calling role. No one answered. “Miss Hermione Granger,” he called again. No response. “Well, it seems Miss Granger thinks this class is beneath her.” There was a series of snickers from Keefe’s side of the classroom. The teacher smiled. Creepy . “Mr. Potter,” the teacher snapped. The kid with the glasses glared at the teacher. “Please inform Miss Granger, that since she thinks she can already create perfect potions, that she may take the final exam tomorrow morning in my office at 7:00am.”

“But Professor Snape, that’s not fair!” the glasses kid, Mr. Potter, yelled standing up. Keefe agreed. He stood up and added, “yeah, maybe she’s just sick or something. I’m sure she wouldn’t miss your class without a good reason.” Unless she realized that she needed to escape while she still could, he added in his head. 

The whole class was silent. Even Professor Snape was looking at him strangely, both eyebrows raised. 

Keefe swallowed nervously. The hair was non-negotiable, but other than that he had thought he had the whole ‘Draco Malfoy’ act down no problem. 

“Malfoy, what happened to you?” the Potter boy asked. No one told him to shut up, not even Professor Snape. They wanted to see what he would say. 

Keefe was about to respond, when he saw the red-head kid next to Potter give an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Keefe stared at him and tilted his head in question, and the red-head put a finger to his lips and mouthed later . 

After a silence that lasted just a bit too long, Keefe said, “Um, nothing…” he racked his brain for something he could add. Based on what Crabbe and Goyle had told him, Malfoy was like a king amongst his classmates. So he added, “nothing is wrong, peasants . Please, let Professor Snape get back to his cooking class.”

Professor Snape narrowed his eyes and the red-head kid face-palmed, but Keefe smirked a little, feeling proud of himself. Potter was still shooting him odd looks, but the rest of the class seemed mollified. 

Snape let his comment slide. Perhaps Malfoy was a favorite of his. Keefe was determined to end that as soon as he could. He’d always hated being teachers pet. 

“Turn to page three-hundred and ninety-four,” Snape drolled. “You may begin.” Keefe sighed inwardly. He quickly read over the ingredients Snape had assigned that day. Boring. Who would want to create a sleeping potion? He was perfectly capable of falling asleep whenever he wanted thank you very much. He flipped through the rest of the book. He could barely hold back a snort as he read over some of the ingredients. Frog’s head, mushed roots, warts… he looked around the classroom bemused. Did these people actually think mixing this stuff together would work? He looked at Snape. If Snape was really a potions master, he could have mixed up a beautification potion and a happiness potion and been a much more likable person. 

Besides, he didn’t remember Sophie mentioning any of this crazy stuff when she was talking about humans before. 

He looked at the red-head kid again. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure he had noticed this kid staring at him during breakfast. Maybe he and Malfoy were friends in this universe or something. Oh well. He would try and talk to him after class.

Keefe had no idea what was going on. He knew what Crabbe and Goyle had told him after he had fixed his hair that morning. He was an important wizard. He was king of the school. He could do magic. It all sounded crazy. Now he had a new appreciation for what Sophie had gone through when Fitz first whisked her away to magic elf land with no warning. 

Nothing made sense. Why was he in a different world? Why was he in a different body? His powers didn’t work either. It was… disconcerting… not being able to feel everyone’s emotions. He wasn’t sure how to tell what someone thought of him. But it was also kind of nice. For once, he could just feel his own feelings. 

Well, he would do some looking around tonight. There was nothing he could do at this point. For now, he was just going to enjoy being free from all the horrors of the last few weeks. He hoped that everything was alright at Alluveterre. Hopefully, time wasn’t even passing at all.

He would do what he could, but he was also determined to enjoy himself. From what he’d seen so far, this Malfoy person was most likely a big jerk. If Keefe somehow messed up his reputation while in his body, he wouldn’t feel too guilty about it. So he was going to have some fun. He turned to a page in his potions book labeled, ‘Invisibility Potion.’ He’d always wanted to be a Vanisher. If this worked, it would be awesome . 

~~~

Dex was stressed . Keefe was in his potions class, and he was causing a huge scene. Now the whole class was suspicious. He had no idea how to get out of this situation, and on top of that he had to do homework . Dex sighed. No matter how many life threatening situations he was in, he was always expected to do homework to some degree. 

He needed to look like he knew what he was doing to avoid suspicion. He opened the textbook to the correct page and started reading the ingredients. Rabbit’s foot? Toenail powder? Humans were disgusting. Still, it shouldn’t be too hard. Just so long as he followed the instructions, it wasn’t too far off from how he did Alchemy at Foxfire. 

Dex left his seat to start gathering ingredients. When he came back, Harry had already added water to his caldron and had it heating on his desk. How…?

“Harry,” Dex whispered. 

“What?”

“Can you, um…” he gestured to Harry’s caldron, embarrassed, and Harry nodded understanding. 

“Sure, mate,” Harry answered. He looked to make sure Snape wasn’t paying attention, then quickly muttered some words while flicking his wooden stick over the caldron. Suddenly, like magic, water and a fire just appeared. 

“...thanks,” Dex stuttered.

“No problem,” Harry said. “You forgot your wand?”

“Something like that,” Dex muttered. He put down his ingredients and started following the directions as best he could.

~30 mins later~

“Professor Snape, sir?” Keefe raised his hand high in the air and waved it back and forth like a preschooler. 

“I assume you are finished Malfoy, or you would not deign to summon me in such a… childish… manner,” Snape sneered. 

“I am finished,” Keefe nodded, “but I also had a question.” Without waiting for a response, he asked, “when you make a potion, are you supposed to pour it on yourself? Or do you eat it? Because I don’t particularly want to swallow something with rat’s earwax in it.”

The class laughed as Keefe grinned. 

“Silence!” Professor Snape cut off the laughter instantly and rose from his chair. “I will assume, Mr. Malfoy, for your sake, that you are joking. Especially ,” he added, “since rat’s earwax was not mentioned in the ingredients list.”

“Actually,” Keefe said, “I decided to make a different potion.”

“ What ,” Professor Snape hissed. One could practically hear the venom dripping from his voice. 

“Today’s assignment was boring, so I made an Invisibility potion instead,” Keefe explained. “Could you check it for me? I don’t want to die or anything when I use it.” There was muffled laughter heard throughout the classroom.

“Detention Malfoy!” Snape snapped. “And five points from Slytherin! I do not know what you think you are doing, but I will not tolerate this behavior inside my classroom! Pack up your bags and leave immediately. I will see you for detention tomorrow after class.”

~~~

Harry whistled inaudibly through his teeth. He’d never seen Draco treat Professor Snape like that. And of course all he got was a detention. If Harry had so much as touched an ingredient not on the list, he would have gotten expelled from Hogwarts entirely. 

He turned to Ron. “Mental, that one is,” he said, smiling, in an imitation of Ron’s mannerism.

"Tell me about it,” Ron said. He was watching Draco pack his things. He looked… antsy. 

“Everything alright?” Harry asked.

“Yeah… I just…” Ron’s eyes lit up. “I have to go to the bathroom!” 

“Ron,” Harry tried to warn, “don’t…”

“Professor Snape!” Ron called, raising his hand. Great . Harry thought. Now they were in for it.

Snape was looking at the contents of Draco’s potion in utter bewilderment. Harry couldn’t tell quite what he was saying, but it was something to the effect of, “... Malfoy’s never brewed a decent potion in his life… nearly perfect…” Snape’s head snapped up at Ron’s call.

“I suppose you are finished Mr. Weasly?” he drawled tiredly. 

“May I go to the bathroom sir?” Ron asked, fidgeting.

Distracted, Snape waved him away and continued studying Draco’s potion. Ron left, and Harry tensed as Snape finished and started walking towards him.

“Mr. Potter, pathetic as usual,” he sneered looking at his potion. He turned to Ron’s. “And I suppose Mr. Weasly’s potion is even more disappointing…” he barely glanced at it, then did a double take. “Unbelievable…” Snape muttered. “Twenty more points from Gryffindor.”

“What, why!?” Harry shouted, unable to contain himself.

“For copying,” Snape shot back. “Mr. Weasly’s potion was perfect. He must have cheated. And five more points for talking back, Potter.”

“But Ron didn’t…” Harry stopped himself, thinking better of it. Ron didn’t cheat, he didn’t even have his wand! Harry thought to himself. So how in the world…?

Chapter Text

“Good morning Sophie!” A fat wrinkly, and very stinky old man waved her over. Hermione held her breath, and moved hesitantly towards the breakfast table. Her nose wrinkled when she spotted the odd assortment of colorful looking casseroles that seemed to be on the menu. 

“Sophie? Are you alright?” The man asked. Hermione took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. 

She plastered on a fake smile and folded her hands. “Everything is fine, thank you. Just… tired, I guess.”

The man nodded in understanding. “You and everyone else in this tree house. You’re actually the first one awake besides Mrs. Vacker. Calla is trying to get everyone else up now.”

An awkward silence descended between them. Hermione took the time to look around and study the other people around the table. Mrs. Vacker looked like a super model, but she moved around the kitchen helping with breakfast and smiling in a way that reminded Hermione of her mother. The other people there, however, where… not so normal. One of them was completely covered in ice, there were a couple of short hairy creatures, and more of the tree house elf things. 

She was definitely not in any part of the wizarding world that she had ever heard of before. Maybe, she thought, intrigued, she wasn’t in the world she knew at all. She smiled to herself excitedly. Were there other dimensions? Maybe different occupied planets? She made a note to herself to start keeping a journal as soon as she could. 

The fat man cleared his throat. “So, Sophie,” he started. Hermione felt a sense of foreboding. The man looked guilty and he wasn’t meeting her eyes. “I know Calla warned you that you would be continuing with your trust exercises with Fitz…”

“Yes,” Hermione answered cautiously,

“Right,” the man coughed. “I know you aren’t going to like this, but Fitz and I are of the opinion that you need… well, you need to tell him what’s been bothering you.”

Hermione nodded her head slowly. “Sure…” she said. She figured she could just make something up on the spot. Whenever she saw who this Fitz character was. 

The fat man blinked at her. “That’s it?”

Oops. Maybe she should have put up more of a fight. Time to improvise… “Yeah, its great! It’s fine!!” Hermione laughed nervously. Wow. Great actor, she thought to herself dryly. “I just… um…” he was giving her a weird look. “I think that this huge, um, secret that I’ve been hiding, is, um… holding me back! And it will really help my… telepathy… if I… tell him?” Hermione held her breath, waiting to see if he would buy it.

He gave her a strange look, but just shrugged and went back to his breakfast. Mrs. Vacker startled Hermione by coming up behind her and giving her a hug. “Well done, Sophie,” she smiled. “I know this is hard for you, but I am proud of you for doing the right thing.”

“Of course,” Hermione said, smiling back. She stopped smiling when she turned her attention back to her plate of food. Grimacing, she took her fork and selected a big glob of the yellow and purplish mushroom looking things. “I can’t believe I’m going to die from intentionally eating creepy plants,” she muttered under her breath. But she was hungry. So she took the tiniest bite she could manage… and her eyes opened wide. She hurriedly stuffed another helping into her mouth. If all the food here tasted this good, she wouldn’t mind being trapped here as much.

~~~

Keefe waited by the entrance to the potions classroom for the red headed kid. He smirked. That Professor Snape had no idea what hit him. And he was pretty sure he was still rocking the whole ‘Draco Malfoy’ persona. He fingered the vial of invisibility potion that he had managed to sneak out of his cauldron before he was kicked out of class. As soon as he figured out how to safely use it, he was going to explore the castle. And prank Snape. Obviously.

The red head didn’t take long. Keefe’s eyebrows rose in surprise as ‘Mr. Weasley’ rushed out the door and started to look around in panic. That was fast. Keefe grinned and waved him over. 

“How about that Snape?” Keefe laughed when he got close. He raised his nose and lowered his eyebrows. “Detention, Malfoy ,” he droned in a perfect imitation of Snape’s voice. “For being absolutely brilliant and making an invisibility potion.” Keefe smiled and looked at the red head, but the kid wasn’t smiling back. Instead he looked… nervous.

“Hey, you alright Weasley?” Keefe asked, concerned. “Look, I was only having a bit of fun. I mean, the guy wears a dress and has class in a dungeon of all things.” The kid still wouldn’t respond. He was just staring at him. Weird.

“Hello?” Keefe said, waving his hands in front of the kid. “Weasley? Or can I call you ‘Pop goes the Weasel,’ because I really like that better…”

“If I said, ‘Dex,’” the kid interrupted suddenly. “Would that mean anything to you?”

Keefe stopped short. No. Way.

“Or Sophie? What about Biana, Fitz, Mr. Forkle, Tam…”

“Tam?” Keefe interrupted. “Hold up. I don’t know anyone named ‘Tam,’ but I do know a kid named Bangs Boy…”

Weasley let out a sigh of relief. “Keefe, thank goodness it’s you. Though I hardly doubted it since the big scene you made at breakfast. WHAT ON EARTH WHERE YOU THINKING?!? ”

“Dex?” Keefe asked, ignoring him.

“Yes, I’m Dex,” he answered shortly. 

“You’re a little… chubbier… then I remember,” Keefe smirked. 

“And you are exactly the same,” Dex moaned. “Keefe, we don’t know where we are, we don’t know who we are, we don’t know if these people will want to kill us or not, we don’t know if the Neverseen are behind this, we don’t know anything . You can’t just prance about like there are no consequences for any of your actions! We have to figure out what’s going on, we have to figure out how to get home, we have to…”

“Hold up,” Keefe interrupted. “If you’re here, and I’m here… do you think Sophie is here too?” He asked, hopefully.

“Did you hear a word I just said?” Dex asked, exasperated. 

“Not really,” Keefe admitted. 

Dex face-palmed. 

“Look, Dexy,” Keefe said. “You’re way overthinking this. Nobody here wants to kill us, we’re in a high school for crying out loud! The worst that could happen is we get detention. Just relax. I’m sure that whatever crazy thing is happening will sort itself out.”

“Keefe,” Dex asked, stressed, “if you woke up one day and discovered that Sophie wasn’t, well, Sophie, and instead her body was occupied by a crazy stranger who is nothing like her, what would you do about it?”

“Lock up the fake Sophie and try to find the real one,” Keefe answered promptly.

Dex gestured as if to say, ‘see?’

“Oh,” Keefe said. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Exactly,” Dex said. “We have no idea what will happen to us if they find out. So I say, we lay low, play along, and try to find out if there are any of our other friends here.”

“Okay,” Keefe said. “Sounds like a plan.” He paused as if considering something. “Dex?”

“What is it?” Dex asked tiredly.

“It’s just that, if we’re here in these people’s bodies, what do you think is happening back home?”

Dex’s eyes widened. “Oh no…” he breathed.

~~~

“AGHGHAHGHGHAGH!!!!” Ron screamed loudly. A tree-house elf looking thing had found him snooping around the giant tree house. It just stared at him, taken aback.

“AGHGHAGHAGHG!!!!” Ron screamed again, moving into the corner of the room and hiding his face. “Please, don’t eat me! Or steal my brains or anything. I promise I’m not going to hurt your tree! I swear!”

“… Dex?” Calla looked at him concerned. 

Ron peeped out from his fingers. It didn’t seem to be attacking him. Yet. He slowly relaxed. “You’re… not going to eat me?”

“… no?” She tried. 

“WaS THat A QUesTIOn!??!?” Ron panicked again and tried to move away from her. “Look, lady, I don’t do creepy magic creatures very well,” he whimpered. “Please… just leave.”

“Dex, you are acting very strange. Maybe…”

“For the last time, my name is RON, not Dex. I don’t know where I am, I have a different body for crying out loud, and now a magical creature is trying to eat me!!”

Calla stared at him in shock. “You’re… not Dex?”

“No!! I’m not!!”

“How is this possible?” She asked, looking at him carefully.

“How should I know?” Ron whimpered.

Calla nodded. “I think you should come with me.”

“But you…”

“I’m not going to eat you!” She said, tersely. “Now come on. We need to figure out what’s going on.”

~~~

Tam took a deep breath and smiled. The sound of absolute silence. It was wonderful.

He got up from bed and quickly changed into his clothes. He sighed in relief. It had been days since he’d had the room to himself. He’d almost forgotten…

Dex must have gotten up before him. As usual. What was unusual was that it had not disturbed him. He chuckled to himself. Maybe he had scared some sense into Dex last night. Hopefully there would be no more hacking of computers or closet mishaps in the future. 

Tam gathered his things and headed into the bathroom. His smile became a full out grin as he swiped Dex’s toothbrush off of the countertop and onto the floor. “Much better,” he said to himself. “Just one morning that belongs to me .”

After he finished up he went back into the room and started fixing his hair in the mirror across from the door. The silver had begun chipping off of his bangs a little bit. He frowned as he made a mental note to get that fixed later. And check on Linh as well. He was straightening up his vest, when his door opened and…

“What the blazers is this ?”

So much for a good morning.

Tam’s smile instantly turned into a grimace. He turned around and crossed his arms to confront the nuisance that had intruded on his privacy. “What do you want Keefe,” he growled.

“Keefe?” Keefe looked at him in the most hilariously affronted manner. Tam bit back a grin. “What kind of idiotic name is that?”

“That’s what I’ve always wanted to know,” Tam muttered under his breath. “Just leave me alone. Now .”

Keefe turned his nose up in a way that reminded Tam way too much of his father Lord Cassius. “I will gladly leave these… apartments. My father’s house has entire rooms furnished with gold . Your room is made out of a tree . Idiot.”

Tam ran his hand down his face. Best to get this over with. “Okay, what is it?”

Keefe, who had turned to leave, looked back in annoyance. “What is what ?”

“What’s the joke?” Tam asked impatiently.

“The only joke I see,” Keefe said bitingly, “is your ridiculous sense of fashion and your deplorable hair.”

Tam sighed deeply. “Another hair comment? Really? Very original.”

Keefe looked at him as if he had gone crazy. “What do you mean another hair comment ? If you mean people tell you your hair looks bad all the time, good for them. Maybe you should listen, peasant .”

Peasant? Tam thought. Really? “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Like Empathy training or something?” He asked. 

“ Empathy training? ” Keefe said, incredulously. “You must be joking.”

“No, actually,” Tam said flatly.

“I assume by empathy training you’re implying that I’m a heartless brat.”

“No… but I like that interpretation way better,” Tam smirked. 

Draco threw up his hands in the air. “Why on earth would I try to figure out what other people are feeling? Feelings are stupid. And as far as I can tell, the only feelings in this whole accursed place arise from stupid people .”

Tam was about to lose it. He combed his fingers through his hair and glared at Keefe. “Look, I know you delight in tormenting me for some reason, and I must say under normal circumstances I would gladly make fun of your superiority complex, daddy issues, and lack of humor, but I’m done with this conversation. Either go get something to eat or go back to bed because, and I can’t believe I’m saying it, you’re even more annoying than normal, and I swear, if you don’t shut up right now I will use my shadow powers on you and explode you or something.” Tam stopped, breathing deeply and glaring at Keefe.

Keefe opened and closed his mouth a few times as if to say something, but he thought better of it. Instead, he sauntered out the door with one last sour look at Tam. 

As soon as Keefe left, Tam groaned and flopped back on his bed. Sometimes he wished that he and Linh had just stayed put in Exilium. 

~~~

Harry shook his head. He’d had crazy potions classes before, but this one was by far the craziest. He had to admit, he never thought that Draco would have had the guts to talk to Snape like that. And he even stood up for Hermione… which was… super weird. 

He stepped out of the classroom, and almost immediately saw Ron by one of the pillars. He smiled in relief and was about to call out to him when the smile froze on his face. Ron was talking to Draco. 

Harry just stopped where he was. He grunted as annoyed Slytherins pushed him out of the way. When Ron noticed that the class had let out, he panicked slightly and stepped back from Draco, looking around. Looking for him, probably. 

Maybe Ron was still mad about the whole Triwizard Tournament thing. But Ron wouldn’t join forces with Draco of all people… right? Maybe he should be direct, just ask Ron what was going on.

Ron noticed him and grinned weakly, running to Harry’s side. “That was some potions class, wasn’t it Harry?”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. He looked sideways at Ron. “And I’ve never seen you make a decent potion in your life. Snape almost had a heart attack when he saw it.” Draco was watching them. Why wouldn’t the punk just mind his own business?

Ron’s ears turned red all the way to the roots of his hair. “Oh,” he said awkwardly. “Sorry about that.”

“Sorry?” Harry laughed. “You surprising Snape was my favorite part of this whole week! Besides Draco getting detention of course.” Harry watched Ron’s face for a reaction. He definitely looked like he was hiding something.

“Ron?” Harry asked. “Look mate, I trust you, you know that right?”

“Of course! Yes! I… trust you too?” Ron answered. Was that guilt Harry saw?

“Look, Ron, don’t get the wrong idea…” Harry started. “But… why were you having a conversation with Draco ?”

“Um…” Ron was turning red again, and was nervously playing with the edges of his robe. “Well, you see…”

At that moment, Draco himself strode over to where they were standing. He smiled at Harry with a genuine, dare he think it, friendly looking smile. It gave him the creeps.

Much to Harry’s bewilderment, Draco actually put his arm around Ron. “Hiya, Harry!” He said, grinning cheekily. “Couldn’t help but overhear you. Just thought you should know, me and De… Ron are buds now.”

Harry’s mouth fell open. He looked from Ron to Draco and back again. Ron was glaring daggers at Draco, but he didn’t seem to notice. 

“Ron?” Harry asked weakly.

Draco looked at Ron, who was still glaring at him. Draco shrugged as if to say, “what?” Ron shoved Draco’s hand off of his shoulder. “We are not friends ,” he hissed at Draco. He glanced at Harry, who was watching in disbelief, and continued, “we can’t be friends, because we’ve never been friends before .”

Draco looked at Harry’s shocked face and Ron’s meaningful expression. He laughed and said sarcastically, “ Right .” He winked at Ron and continued, “who’s to say people can’t change? Anyway, I’ll catch you guys at lunch, I’ve got to go to something called Trans-conflagor-ationing or something.” With that, he practically skipped away.

There was complete silence when he left. Ron was hiding his face. Harry was still speechless.

“… Ron?” Harry asked after a while. 

“Just…” Ron said at the same time. 

“I feel stupid for even thinking this, but Draco’s not actually trying to be… friends… is he?” Harry questioned. “Because that’s completely crazy and impossible. Right?”

“Of course it’s crazy,” Ron said hastily. “But, maybe not impossible?”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “If you aren’t in on this…”

“I’m not ,” Ron reassured him. “I swear.”

“It feels like a trap,” Harry continued. 

“Maybe that’s what it is!” Ron said excitedly. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”

“At this point,” Harry said, “I hope it's some elaborate prank, because if not, Draco is a completely different person than he was yesterday, and it's kind of freaking me out.”

“Different person!?” Ron said loudly. “Different person ?” He laughed awkwardly. “Yeah right, that’s ridiculous . Ha. Ha?”

Harry looked at Ron. He could practically see him sweating from nervousness. And his face was still red. Something was definitely… not right. He needed to talk to Hermione about all of this. And finish training for the Tournament. Which was tomorrow. Ugh. “Utterly ridiculous,” Harry agreed. He didn’t miss Ron’s big sigh of relief. “Um, Ron, I’m going to try and find Hermione…”

“Great! I’ll join you,” Ron said quickly. 

Harry rolled his eyes. Of course. “Come on then, let’s go.”

Chapter Text

“Go away!!” Hermione screamed from her bedroom. “This is a girl’s room, and there are no boys allowed!”

“Hermione, come on,” Harry called back. “You didn’t turn into a cat again, did you?”

“I’m sick!” A series of extremely fake coughs emanated from her bedroom. “I’m dying . Just go on without me.” Cue more fake coughs.

Harry rolled his eyes. Just what he needed. Hermione was always dependable, and she chose today of all days to start freaking out for no reason?

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” a girl who lived in Hermione’s dorm called from the couch in the commons room. 

“What’s wrong with her?” Ron asked from beside Harry. “Is she usually like this?”

Harry gave him an odd look. Ron knew Hermione wasn’t like this. At least, most of the time. 

The girl looked at him oddly too. “There’s nothing wrong with her, other than the fact that she had a full on panic attack when she woke up this morning. She kept muttering, ‘where am I?!’” The girl folded her hands in her lap. “Must have been a bad dream.”

Harry sucked in a breath and turned to Ron. “You don’t think…”

Ron looked at him stupidly. Harry gestured him over and whispered, making sure the couch girl couldn’t hear. “You don’t think she was visited by Voldemort, do you? That he’s using my friends to get to me?”

Ron said, ever so slowly, “Do you think… that Hermione and this… Voldemort… are on a first name basis?”

Harry snorted. “First name basis Ron? Really?”

Ron shrugged. “It’s just… I don’t see why this Voldemort person would talk to her, when he’s more interested in talking to you.”

Harry shook his head, mollified. “I guess you’re right. Besides, I think Voldemort is able to talk to me because of my scar.”

“Yeah…” Ron said slowly, hiding his confused look very badly. “Bad guys like scars.”

Harry barely contained a laugh. “Ron, I’ve never knew that you had such a sense of humor.”

Ron grinned back, “neither did I.” He looked back up the stairs. “Do you think we should go get her? We won’t have much time left for lunch if we don’t leave soon…”

Harry took a step back. “ I’m not getting her. Hermione is scary when she’s angry.”

Ron gulped. “I guess I’ll go get her.” He looked back at Harry, who gestured him forwards. He took a deep breath and climbed up the stairs. 

~~~

“Um, Hermione?” Dex knocked on the door. “Harry and I are worried about you. I think you should come out. Oh, and you missed potions class.” Dex was nervous. Here he was, about to meet his other supposed ‘best friend’ after Keefe completely wrecked Harry’s confidence in him minutes before. He wasn’t stupid. He knew Harry suspected that something was up. But there was no way he would guess the truth… right?

But according to Harry, Hermione was the smartest person in the whole school. So she would probably see through his facade right away. Which was so great . 

“I know I missed Potions class. Trust me, it was intentional. I would have exploded something for sure. Now leave me alone!” Hermione called from behind her door. 

“Hermione, you’re the smartest person in the whole school!” Supposedly. “Come on, at least grab some lunch with us.”

“No thank you. I’m staying in here, and I’m not coming out until I get this whole… mess figured out.” Mess? What mess? Dex was not cut out for dealing with best friends he had never met. 

“Look, Hermione, I can help you get caught up with the class you missed if you want,” Dex tried.

“I’m not going to any of my classes today,” Hermione said. “I’m staying in my room. And don’t come back tomorrow either.”

“Hermione…” Dex moaned, but then stopped. Something was… off. According to Harry, Hermione was supposed to help with the Triwizard Tournament tomorrow (whatever that was). And, also according to Harry, Hermione never missed a class and was perfect at every subject (except for Divin-oo-ity or something). If Dex was here, and Keefe was here, then maybe…

Barely daring to hope, Dex knocked softly and whispered, “it’s Dex, Dex Dizznee.”

He held his breath. There was nothing but utter silence. Great. Now Hermione would think he was crazy without even needing to talk to Harry. 

Suddenly, the doorknob turned and the door opened just a crack.

Dex’s head started pounding like crazy from anticipation. 

“Dex?” The girl whispered. “Is that you?”

~~~

Keefe tapped his hands impatiently while waiting in the cafeteria. Dex was late. Keefe smirked, remembering Dex’s look of complete horror when he came over to talk to Harry. He was probably late intentionally.

Keefe knew that it was dangerous to reveal that he wasn’t the real Draco Malfoy. And Dex’s plan made sense. But the way Keefe saw it, not one person was going to believe he was the same Draco they had known regardless of how careful he was. 

So, if the people in this wizard castle were going to see Draco have a change of heart, Keefe figured he might as well go all out. 

Besides, where was the fun in being a rotten spoilsport all the time? He could already tell from too much time spent in Crabbe and Goyle’s company that they were afraid of him. He needed to change that. And he needed to make different friends.

He looked around the cafeteria one more time. Still no Dex. But he did spot the two twins that he had noticed talking with Dex earlier that morning. Not that he had known it was Dex at the time, but having a photographic memory can come in handy when you need to remember who was in a room.

And the twins looked pretty similar to Dex’s ‘Ron’ form. Keefe grinned. If they were related… this was going to be pure gold.

Ignoring the other Slytherin’s surprised looks (he was used to them by now), he walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat right across from both of the twins. 

Now the entire cafeteria was silent. Well, Keefe did have that effect on people.

“What’s up guys!” Keefe said with a smile, ignoring the mean looks he was getting. He clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “What’s the plan? What’s on the agenda?”

The twins stared at him. A couple of their friends raised their eyebrows and headed to a different table. The twins made to follow them. Oh no, Keefe wouldn’t let them get away that easily. He grabbed the closest one’s robe and tugged him forcefully back down into his chair.

“Now look here you little…” the twin he had grabbed said angrily. The other twin was shaking in barely suppressed laughter.

Keefe spread his hands in self defense. “Look, I only want to talk.”

The twin he had grabbed was glaring at him, but the other twin, who had stopped laughing, sat down, and looked at Keefe. 

“Listen, Malfoy,” the less angry twin said. “Since you don’t seem to remember this, we don’t like you. You’ve always been a slimy twit…”

“I fixed the slimy, actually,” Keefe interrupted. He tousled his hair and said, “it took several hours and I had to teach myself how to use the magic stick… er… wand thingy, but it worked.”

The angry twin, who seemed more amused than angry now, said to his brother, “he is less slimy than usual.”

“Thank you,” Keefe inclined his head in appreciation. 

“Well, the point is,” the twin continued, “we don’t want to talk to you. The only reason I am right now is because of your little performance at breakfast this morning.”

“And,” the other twin jumped in, “because our friends have just been telling us how you totally roasted Snape in Potions.” He grinned. “The news is traveling over the school faster than gossip about Hagrid’s new girlfriend.”

Keefe leaned back and kicked his feet up on the table. “What can I say, I’m a changed man.”

The twins raised their eyebrows at each other. “Go on,” one of them said.

“Well, as it turns out, being a ‘slimy twit’ isn’t all it's cracked up to be. I’m buddies with your brother Ron now, and he said you guys would be cool.”

“You’ve always been a horrible jerk to Ron,” a twin said flatly. Good, Keefe thought. They were brothers then.

“Why should we believe you?” The other twin added. “This could be some elaborate plot or something.”

“That’s giving him a bit too much credit, isn't it Fred?” The first twin asked.

“All I’m asking for is a chance,” Keefe said. “Let me prove myself.”

Fred looked at his twin, and they nodded grinning mischievously. “All right,” he said. “We’ll let you prove yourself.”

“But you have to do exactly what we say,”

“Without question,”

“And no hesitation,” he finished. 

Keefe smirked. “Bring it on.”

~~~

Dex breathed a sigh of relief, which quickly choked in his throat once the door opened all of the way. What greeted him was definitely not a human or an elf. It looked like some kind of… mutant bush monster. 

“Dex?” The girl said again. “ Help me .”

Dex started laughing. He couldn’t help himself. Tears poured out of his eyes as he tried to take big gulps of air with no success. “ Sophie ?”

“Shhh!” The bush-monster-that-was-Sophie tugged on his arm and pulled him inside the room. She closed the door and sank to the floor, exhausted. “How did you know it was me?” She asked, finally.

Dex managed to calm down and gestured to her, what he now realized must be hair , with a smirk.

Sophie closed her eyes and grimaced. “Dex, it’s an absolute nightmare . She stared at him and said, “I swear I will never again envy girls with curly hair. Never. Again.”

“I can see why you didn’t want to come out now,” Dex smiled.

“Well, the hair, and the fact that I’M IN A DIFFERENT WORLD, A DIFFERENT BODY, AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO GET BACK OR WHAT TO DO AND HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DEFEAT THE NEVERSEEN LIKE THIS AND IS THIS PERMANENT OR….” Sophie started hyperventilating. 

Dex put a hand over her mouth and shushed her. “Sophie, I know this is scary, and I know that literally nothing makes sense right now, but you need to play it cool. We can’t have people knowing that we stole their friend’s bodies, because that is super weird and sketch,”

“Super sketch,” Sophie agreed,

“Yes, and Keefe has already completely blown his new character…”

“Keefe’s here?” Sophie interrupted hopefully. 

Dex rolled his eyes at her. “Yes, Keefe’s here. And…”

“He must be stressed,” Sophie interrupted again. “About his mom and being here instead…”

“Oh yeah, he’s real stressed,” Dex said dryly. “Probably about to have an emotional collapse.”

Sophie noticed the sarcasm. “He’s not stressed?”

“Not in the least,” Dex said. “In fact, he’s the one stressing me out. He thinks this is some kind of fun game. He even threatened to meet me at lunch, and once he knows you’re here too, he’s going to be insufferable…”

“Why can’t we meet him at lunch?” Sophie asked. 

“Because his new person is Draco Malfoy,” Dex explained, “who is apparently the biggest jerk in the school. And now, our supposed best friend Harry is super suspicious of me because he keeps giving me hugs and smiles!!”

Sophie hid a grin. That sounded like Keefe. “I guess we’ll just have to find a way out of this as quickly as we can,” she said. She frowned suddenly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed Dex, but I have not been able to use my abilities at all. I can’t read minds, or anything. It feels… weird.”

Dex’s eyes widened. He hadn’t even considered that they would lose their abilities. But it made sense. “I hadn’t noticed,” Dex answered. “The most technologically advanced thing I’ve seen in this castle is this wooden stick.” He looked at Sophie. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of ‘wizards’ or ‘witches’ running amok in human land…”

“Only in myths and legends,” Sophie said. “You don’t mean…”

“These humans aren’t like the others,” Dex confirmed. 

“So the wooden stick…”

“Is apparently supposed to do magic,” Dex answered.

“Magic.” Sophie said, arching an eyebrow. 

“Harry filled my cauldron with this stick, and I don’t see a big container of water attached to it,” Dex said. “I think that this school is for studying magic. Like how at Exillium we study our natural abilities and at Foxfire our specialized abilities.”

Sophie held Dex’s ‘magic stick’ and stared at it. Then she tossed it on the best and sat back down on the floor. “Honestly,” she said, “after learning about elves and ogres and mind reading, this surprise is kind of a step down.”

Dex just looked at her in shock. 

Sophie continued, “I mean, it is kind of weird that you don’t seem to know about this place, since elves are supposed to know everything.”

“That’s not strange Sophie,” Dex said. “It’s terrifying . A whole entire race of humans that can do crazy magic stuff…”

“So far, the only ‘crazy magic’ I’ve heard you talk about is filling a cauldron with water,” Sophie said dryly.

“Filling a cauldron with water with a stick Sophie,” Dex corrected. “A stick .”

“Not impressed,” Sophie replied. 

“There’s probably other crazy dangerous stuff happening too,” Dex said defensively. “We should report…”

“Chances are, the Council knows about this place, or it's a forgotten secret,” Sophie said. “My main concern is getting back into our correct bodies at Alluteverre.”

“Fine,” Dex huffed. “But I’m at least going to tell Mr. Forkle.”

“RON!!!” Harry called from down below. “Is she coming!?”

“Yeah, she’s coming!” Dex called back. He looked at Sophie. “We have to go.”

Sophie grimaced and nodded. “Just hope your friend Harry doesn’t pay much attention to a girl’s hair.”

~~~

Harry could not stop staring at Hermione’s hair.

It was… bad.

He and Ron used to tease her for her hair before they were friends, which he felt bad about. And it had gotten better over the years. But this . This was on a completely different level.

She didn’t say anything, and neither did Ron. Harry tried to stop staring, and took the lead out of the commons room. At least he knew why she didn’t want to come out, and he wasn’t going to say anything to scare her away now.

~~~

“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

The entire commons room was chanting. Keefe grinned as he raised his glass. He got up off of his bench and stood in the middle of the table. Fred and George started pounding the table in a rhythm, and soon everybody else had joined in. 

“What do you want me to do?!?” Keefe yelled above the roar. “You want me to drink it?!”

“CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” The screams of the students got even louder as the whole cafeteria began to shake. 

Keefe smirked and downed the contents of the glass in one gulp. 

Everybody started cheering and hitting the table thunderously over and over again. Fred and George slapped Keefe on the back as he sputtered and wiped his tongue off as quickly as he could.

“That was repulsive ,” Keefe grimaced, smiling at the twins. 

“What do you expect mate,” George laughed. “We’ve been collecting that earwax for months .”

“And those toenail clippings weren’t exactly easy to come by,” Fred added.

“You guys are awesome ,” Keefe laughed. “Where have you been all my life?” The room was still cheering, and Keefe did a cheeky bow. When he looked up, he saw the shocked faces of Dex and Harry looking at him in disbelief. 

“Hey George, be a pal, will ya?” Keefe asked, handing George his empty glass. “Looks like your brother still isn’t too fond of me,” he added. 

“Oh, we’ll bring him round,” Fred said, waving Keefe away. 

“Thanks guys!” Keefe ran over to where Dex and Harry were standing. “If Fred and George ever ask you to drink something,” he said dramatically, “just say no .” Keefe laughed and clapped Dex on the back. “You’re pretty late, you know. But hey, it gave me a chance to make up with your brothers.” He waved at Fred and George and they saluted him back. 

“Kee- Draco ,” Dex hissed… “ what in the Lost Cities are you…”

“Hey, language Ron,” Keefe tisked. “We are in the presence of a lady .” He turned towards Hermione with a poorly concealed grin on his face. “Foster, long time no see.”

Sophie/Hermione gave a start. She pulled her hair out of her face as best as she could manage and looked at Keefe in surprise. He winked back at her.

“ Foster? !” Harry finally broke his silence. He looked around at the rest of the cafeteria. “What, do you have pet names for each other now? Am I the only one in this whole forsaken school that does not have a single clue as to what is going on!?”

“Foster and I go waaaay back,” Keefe explained. “It’s because…”

“It’s because ,” Dex interrupted before Keefe could do any more damage, “well, he calls her ‘Foster’ because… um…”

“Because I was a foster child,” Sophie jumped in. 

Harry turned to her in surprise. “You never told me you were a foster child.”

“I didn’t know until today,” Sophie said, never breaking character for a moment. “That’s why…” she gestured to her hair.

Harry looked at her quizzically. “Then has Malfoy been calling you ‘Foster’ since ‘way back’ if you didn’t know until today?”

Dex face-palmed and Sophie sputtered, trying to come up with a valid excuse. Surprisingly, it was Keefe who saved them this time.

“Oh, Harry,” Keefe said. “Harry, Harry Harry.” He shook his head in mock sadness. “You know how I’ve always been a jerk. I’ve called her mean names my entire life.” Keefe managed to squeeze a tear out of his eyes. Dex barked a laugh. “But I regret my rude and unfair treatment of others. I wish to turn over a new leaf. Harry, I know that we’ve had disagreements in the past. But would you be willing to give me a second chance? Would you be willing to forgive me?”

“There is no way this is for real,” Harry said flatly.

“Harry, you wound me,” Keefe sniffed. “I think we could be great friends.”

“You made ‘Potter Stinks’ buttons a week ago,” Harry reminded him. “The whole school was wearing them.”

“A week ago I was a different person,” Keefe grinned. Dex stiffened next to him, but Sophie elbowed him and mouthed ‘calm down.’ “I passed most of Fred and George’s trials already.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, “but a person doesn’t change that much in one night.” Something isn’t right.”

“Oh, lighten up Harry,” Fred and George came up behind their group and ruffled Harry’s hair. “Draco’s the man.” Fred, George, and Keefe did an extremely complicated secret handshake. They stopped, grinning. “If you don’t make up now, you’re going to have a pretty rotten year, because he’s going to be hanging out with us from now on.”

“I don’t trust him,” Harry stated. Keefe gave him puppy dog eyes. Harry shuddered. That did not look right on Draco Malfoy’s face at all . 

“I’m not sure Harry,” Dex said semi-convincingly. “I think he might be for real. I mean, he’s managed to convince the rest of the school in less than twenty minutes.”

“Hermione?” Harry asked. 

“I think we should at least try,” she said hopefully.

Harry glared at Keefe, and Keefe smirked back, raising one eyebrow. Finally Harry sighed in defeat. “Fine.”

“Yes!” Keefe fist pumped, but Harry said, “ If you ever mess up, its back to square one,” he warned.

“Yes sir,” Keefe saluted.

Fred and George laughed. “Looks like your trio just became a quartet, Harry,” Fred teased. 

Harry watched as they went to grab seats for lunch. “What… just happened?” He mumbled to himself.

Chapter Text

“You are a repulsive old man.” Keefe wrinkled his nose in a very non-Keefe-like way as he stared at Mr. Forkle.

Mr. Forkle sighed, running his hand down his face. He was really not in the mood to deal with any more teenage angst today. He admired Sophie’s friends, at least, most of the time, but he missed having just gnomes and adults around. 

“Thank you, Mr. Sencen…” he started.

“You aren’t terribly bright either, are you?” Keefe interrupted, crossing his arms.

Mr. Forkle raised an eyebrow at him. 

“I mean,” Keefe continued, “you’ve obviously never heard of Deodorant, and you don’t even know who I am? Let me guess: you’re also responsible for all of these people living in a tree . If you had red hair I would have assumed we were at the Weasley’s house of all places.” He looked around and sniffed, “Now that I think about it, the Weasley’s house would be preferred over this mud hole. And your house elves are the ugliest I’ve ever seen.”

Mr. Forkle stared at Keefe, who glared right back. “Is this a prank, Mr. Sencen?” He said tiredly. “Because I’m not laughing.”

Keefe refused to acknowledge him. “Where have you taken me?” he asked coldly, ignoring Mr. Forkle’s question. 

“Mr. Sencen,” Mr. Forkle could feel a headache coming. “If you are looking for your quarters, they are literally two doors away.”

“I don’t need directions to my prison old man ,” Keefe sneered. “You know what I want. Where is Hogwarts? My father…”

Mr. Forkle didn’t hear anything else. He sucked in a breath and went pale as death. Hogwarts . No. It was impossible.

“What did you say your name is, son?” He interrupted.

“Draco Malfoy ,” he said angrily. “Incompetent oaf.”

Mr. Forkle was still. He said nothing, and couldn’t say anything. How…? How could this be possible?

“Hogwarts,” he whispered under his breath. “ Hogwarts .”

Keefe - no - Draco had grown impatient by this point. “Listen, geezer, you're wasting my time. Kindly return my wand and I will just go and find Hogwarts myself.”

Mr. Forkle glanced at the imposter, and smiled cynically. “Have you by chance looked in a mirror this morning Mr. Malfoy?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Draco responded angrily. 

“Only that your problem and mine are now one in the same. You should not be here.”

“ Finally ,” Draco huffed, “you’ve said something that makes sense. So how do I get back home?”

“It will not be as easy as you hope, I fear,” Mr. Forkle said. He would have to meet with the Collective today if at all possible. And the Council as well. And the Ministry of Magic. He shuddered. “In the meantime, Mr. Malfoy, I would prefer…”

He was interrupted by Calla who was quickly tugging a reluctant Dex behind her. “Mr. Forkle,” she gasped, out of breath. “We have a problem.” She pulled Dex forward. He spared the Malfoy boy one panicked glance and gulped noticeably. “Tell him,” she encouraged.

Dex nodded nervously and said, “I’m not… um… this Dex kid sir. My name is actually Ron Weasley, and I’m supposed to be at Hogwarts right now.”

Draco Malfoy scoffed noticeably. “If you’re Weasley, then you are way skinnier than you were yesterday.” Dex, no, he said his name was Ron, fixed his stare on Draco in confusion. 

Mr. Forkle’s brows furrowed. Now there were two of them. “Unbelievable,” he whispered.

“Sir,” Calla fretted, “with all due respect, do you have any idea what in the world is going on?”

Mr. Forkle did not answer at first. He laid a hand on Calla’s shoulder and turned to the two boys. He reached in his cape pocket and pulled out a small hand mirror, handing it to Draco without a word. 

Draco took it, skeptical, and raised it up to his face. Instantly he dropped the mirror in horror and it shattered on the ground. “WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FACE!!!” He felt his nose and ears, and gently patted the top of his head. He turned to Mr. Forkle in fury. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!?”

“Mr. Malfoy…” Mr. Forkle started. 

“Draco?” Ron interrupted. He looked at Draco’s new form and burst out laughing. “You look so harmless . And nice . And…” his mirth died quickly and his face took on a sour expression. “Of course Draco Malfoy would be in my cool fantasy adventure.” He kicked the ground. “Why is it always me?”

“I’m not exactly jumping for joy that you’re here either Weasley ,” Draco sneered. 

“Boys! Silence!” Mr. Forkle thundered. They both quieted and turned to him in surprise. Mr. Forkle took a deep breath. “Look,” he said massaging his temples, “I don’t know why this happened. And frankly, I really wish it didn’t happen because we are on the brink of war with the ogres. My team, that you have replaced, was supposed to help me. We need to figure out this mess as quickly as we can. Calla,” he said, turning to her, “I have no idea what is going on, but I do know that the people who have replaced Dex and Keefe are human wizards.”

“Humans?” Calla put her hands to her mouth. 

“Yes,” Mr. Forkle affirmed. “But not as bad as regular humans.”

“You mean Muggles,” Ron said unhelpfully. Mr. Forkle turned to him, not impressed. “At least,” he defended, “that’s what we call them.”

“So if you’re not humans,” Draco said hesitantly, “…what are you?”

“Elves,” Mr. Forkle said.

There was a pause.

Then both Ron and Draco burst out laughing. “ Elves !?” Draco screeched. He wiped tears out of his eyes. “ Elves ? Seriously ?”

“So, you have pointy ears?” Ron giggled. 

“And I suppose you want me to do your dirty laundry? Or cook you a Christmas Turkey?” Malfoy howled. They both fell on the floor still laughing. 

Mr. Forkle was not amused. “You are now both elves as well,” he said. That put a stop to their laughter instantly. Ron looked slightly green. Draco was just annoyed. 

“I refuse to be an elf,” Draco said. “It's demeaning.”

“We don’t even look like elves,” Ron added. 

“It’s a different kind of elf from what you are used to,” Mr. Forkle explained. “For one thing, you are now immortal. You should also have various special abilities… magic you might call it, that you did not have before.”

“Immortal, huh?” Draco smiled to himself. “Interesting…”

“Powers?” Ron said at the same time. “What powers?”

“Mr. Weasley, you should be able to communicate with different elven technologies to get it to do whatever you want,” Mr. Forkle answered.

“So I can just build stuff willy nilly?” Ron asked, excited. 

“The only limit is your own brain,” Mr. Forkle responded. Ron’s face fell a little at that. 

“What about me?” Draco said. “What’s my power?”

“You can feel other people’s emotions.” 

Ron snickered. Draco glared. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“I most certainly am not,” Mr. Forkle shot back.

“Elves are completely useless,” Draco griped. 

“Actually, we elves have been guardians of this world for millennia. Your entire race of wizards are actually descendents of both elves and humans. Though they did not gain the advantage of our longer lifespans, your half breed ancestors discovered a way to channel and use elven DNA, and thus, elven abilities. It is quite remarkable, how what you call a wand is able to tap into every DNA strand. And it's been said that the strongest wizards can do it all within their minds.”

Calla, Draco, and Ron stared at Mr. Forkle in shock.

“He’s mental,” Ron muttered.

“For once Weasley,” Draco said, “I agree with you.”

Ron looked at Draco. “Should we run?” Draco nodded. They both ran around the corner as fast as they could without pausing to look back.

Mr. Forkle sighed. “Calla, please tell Sandor that he needs to track down both Keefe and Dex and bring them to my office.”

“Yes sir,” Calla said quietly. “Sir, is that really true? About the wizards?”

“I do not want you repeating this to anyone,” Mr. Forkle said harshly. “Is that clear?” Calla nodded. “Good. We already get enough grief from the other races over the humans as it is.”

“Are elves still in contact with the wizards?” Calla asked. 

“Only slightly more than we are with regular humans,” Mr. Forkle answered. “Because they are partly elven, we give them updates every so often. They take care of several species such as giants, centaurs, dragons, and the like. Mostly dangerous creatures that can be better handled with magic. Part of the reason that the humans have so much land is so the wizards can hide and protect themselves and their creatures much the same as we do.”

“Another whole race?” Calla breathed. “And completely new species. Incredible.”

“It is something,” Mr. Forkle agreed. “Only the Council and a special team of elves know about them.”

“Another one of your alter egos?” Calla guessed.

“Perhaps,” Mr. Forkle smiled. 

“One last question,” Calla paused. “If these wizards can do magic because they have elven DNA, why can’t the elves do magic?”

“We did try, as soon as the magic was first discovered,” Mr. Forkle explained, “but there’s something about the mix with human DNA that makes it possible. I have often wondered if Sophie could have this ability since she was born from a human mother, but it’s a stretch.”

“I wonder if there are any other imposters in Allutevere? Or even outside of this place. Do you think this could be happening in other places?” 

Mr. Forkle looked worried. “I hope not Calla. Our world would not be able to handle these truths, even on the best of days. I hope that Dex and Keefe are the only ones who are having to suffer right now.”

~~~

Keefe had never had more fun in his entire life. Fred and George were like the brothers he never had. Sophie was here and her hair was hilarious , and Dex looked like he wanted to throw up every five minutes. And poor Harry, who was the only person in their group who was actually supposed to be there, looked so overwhelmed and confused. 

Best. Day. Ever.

Who knew that switching bodies with a complete jerk could be so much fun?

Keefe stuffed another bite of something called a peanut butter sandwich in his mouth. He had had something called eggs for breakfast, and it was only after the fact that Crabbe had told him they came from a chicken’s butt. 

They were good though… maybe he would try eating a little meat while he was here. Maybe.

Harry kept staring at him. He couldn’t blame the guy, but it was freaking him out a little bit. Time to lighten the mood.

“So guys, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow? Anyplace we can hang out? Cool stores? Secret passages? I heard that there was something called the forbidden forest…”

Harry slapped his hands on the table, a vein throbbing in his forehead. “Shut it, Malfoy!” Keefe sat back, eyes wide.

Dex and Sophie looked at Harry in surprise. “Harry?” Sophie asked. “What’s wrong?”

“You know very well what’s wrong,” Harry seethed. He pointed at Keefe accusingly. “He’s baiting me because he knows perfectly well that I have to do the first Triwizard Task tomorrow.”

“Ohhhhh,” Keefe said, relieved. “Sorry, I, um… forgot.”

“Sure you forgot,” Harry said bitingly. “You were just being a jerk.” He looked at his friends for support. They both looked away from him in embarrassment. “Come on guys, back me up.”

Sophie looked out from under her hair. “Harry, I think you should calm down. I really don’t think he meant anything by it.”

Harry looked at her in utter shock. “Hermione? Really? I thought you of all people would be on my side. He calls you ‘mudblood’ almost daily!”

“Harry, chill,” Dex said quietly. “He’s already apologized.”

Harry looked between his two friends in disbelief. 

“Harry…” Keefe tried. 

“No. You know what? I… I need some air.” Frustrated, Harry grabbed his backpack and headed to his class early. 

“Great job Keefe,” Dex muttered. “Now you made him mad.”

“How was I supposed to know about the Tri-wizzy competition thingy?” Keefe said, raising his hands in the air defensively. 

“ Everyone knows about the Triwizard Tournament,” Dex groaned. “That’s all that anyone has talked about today.”

Sophie raised her hand. “What’s a Triwizard Tournament?”

Dex face palmed. 

Keefe gave Sophie a high five.

“Seriously though, guys,” Dex said. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up. We’ll probably have to tell Harry soon at least if we don’t find anything out tonight.”

“We’re sneaking around tonight?” Sophie asked.

“Yes!” Keefe celebrated. “Fred and George have already told me about all the secret passages.”

“We need to find out what’s going on,” Dex said. “And I think we should start with the Principal's office.”

“Leave it to me,” Keefe said, cracking his knuckles. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it's breaking into the Principal’s office.”

“But let’s not tell Harry just yet,” Sophie added. “If he has to do this tournament tomorrow, he probably wants the support of his closest friends.”

“I agree,” Dex said, “we’ll save the - hey, by the way, your best friends are actually not your best friends, they are elves that are inhabiting their bodies - bombshell for later.”

~~~

Harry practically stomped down the hallway, seething. How was it that Draco Malfoy of all people was able to steal his closest friends in the course of one afternoon? 

He kept muttering to himself and didn’t notice where he was going. As he turned a corner, he bumped right into none other than Cedric Diggory. Great. Fantastic.

“Sorry Cedric, didn’t see you there,” Harry groaned, rubbing his head. “Are you alright?”

Cedric sprang up from the floor as quickly as he could. He was very… fidgety… for some reason. He kept looking down the hallway as if he was being chased, and he wouldn’t meet Harry’s eyes.

“Cedric,” Harry repeated. He waved his hand in front of his eyes. “Hello?”

“Hi! Um… you,” Cedric said awkwardly, snapping out of his stupor. He tousled his hair. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” He looked down the hallway again. “Look, if someone named Cho Chang asks where I went, tell her that I went outside or something. Just don’t tell her where I went.”

Harry’s eyebrows rose. “Did you guys fight?”

“I didn’t do anything to her, I swear!” Cedric said in a panicky voice. “She kissed me and now she keeps following me…” he trailed off as if he had said too much. “I’m just confused and I need to sort out my… feelings.”

“Right…” Harry said, skeptical, but slightly hopeful? At the same time. Cedric was about to run off, so Harry added, “hey, good luck fighting your dragon tomorrow by the way.” He grabbed his spilled books from the floor and continued walking to class.

He missed Cedric completely freezing. He also missed Cedric saying in a squeaky voice, “ Dragon!?!?!?”

Chapter Text

“So…. We have Transfiguration?” Sophie looked at her schedule, her brow furrowed. “What on earth is Transfiguration?”

“Oh, that’s how you pronounce it,” Keefe said, looking over her shoulder. “Huh.” He took a bite out of his sandwich and looked at his own schedule. “I have Charms. Not that I need to study that, eh Foster?” Keefe winked as Dex rolled his eyes.

Sophie blushed, thankful for once that her entire face was hidden behind her hair. “We’re not in the same class,” Sophie stated, disappointed.

“Nope,” Keefe agreed. “I think that the only class we have in common is Potions. But don’t worry Foster, you’ll have Dexy and Harry with you.”

“If Harry even shows up,” Dex muttered shooting a dark look at Keefe. Keefe ignored him.

Sophie pulled her ‘wand’ out of her robe pocket and studied it closely. “Do you think,” she asked, “that we would be able to actually use these in our new bodies?”

“Oh sure,” Keefe said, unconcerned. “I already used it for potions. It’s pretty simple really, you just point it at something, say a magic word, and poof! Instant success.”

“Magic word,” Dex repeated, unimpressed. 

“Yep,” Keefe said. “Magic word.”

“What kind of magic words?” Sophie pressed.

“I dunno,” Keefe said. “Whatever the book tells you to do at the time. It’s pretty easy, really. I don’t know why they need classes on this stuff. Seems to me that if you can memorize things, you’re set for success. Which, hello, photographic memory, soooo, I’ve got this in the bag.”

“How great for you,” Dex said sarcastically. 

“You seemed to do potions alright,” Keefe reminded him.

“Yeah, but that was after I got Harry to fill my cauldron with water,” Dex pointed out. 

“And I haven’t even tried to do anything yet,” Sophie said, concerned. “What if I’m not able to do it?”

“Relax, Foster,” Keefe grinned. “Potions was a lot like Alchemy at Foxfire, so you’ve already missed the worst one. I’m sure you’ll do great at Transifgur…”

“Transfiguration,” Sophie helped.

“Yeah, that,” Keefe finished. He got up from the table and grabbed his wand. “Well, I’m off.” Keefe grinned at Dex’s worried look. “Relax, Dexy,” Keefe said. “I’ll behave. And hey, maybe in Charms I’ll figure out a way to get Harry to trust me.”

~~~

Sophie clutched her books tight against her chest. This was a nightmare. This was like starting Foxfire all over again, but this time her failure could mean her death. Maybe. At least, Dex seemed convinced that someone would try to kill them if they found out their real identities. Not that she blamed him, since she became his friend, everything in the Forbidden Cities had been trying to kill him.

And worse, from what she’d heard, she was supposed to be some kind of super genius. 

She took a deep breath, put her book on the desk, and opened it to the correct page for the day.

She took one look…

She was so dead.

At first glance, the teacher seemed harsh. And scary. But maybe she was nice…?

“Miss Granger!” The teacher said in a shrill voice. Sophie groaned inwardly. Here we go. 

“Yes ma’am?” She answered, timidly. Dex shot her a concerned look. 

“Would you please demonstrate for the class how to transform this pitcher into a rabbit? I was quite impressed with your work the other day. It seems no one else cares about this class enough to do the homework.”

Pitcher into a rabbit? What ? 

“Um, Professor…” she was not going to risk pronouncing that name. “Professor,” she tried again. “I’m actually not feeling well.” Sophie gave a few pathetic fake coughs. 

“Oh, posh,” the teacher said. “It won’t take that much out of you, you did it with almost no effort just the other day.” She motioned for Sophie to continue.

Sophie took a deep breath. She ran through the directions she had briefly read on the page, pointed the wand at the pitcher, and….

Nothing happened. 

“You have to say something Sophie,” Dex whispered between his teeth. Harry shot her a concerned look. She was sure her reassuring smile looked much more like a grimace. 

The whole class was waiting. She could hear a few snickers in the back. Her face burned underneath her mammoth head of hair. 

Sophie raised her wand again. The word in the book was… something that she would never be able to pronounce in a hundred years. So maybe if she just said…

“Um, pitcher into rabbit!” 

Nothing happened.

Of course nothing happened. 

The entire class was laughing at her. The professor peered at her over her glasses. “That will be all Miss Granger,” she said. “And I would like to see you after class.”

Sophie sat back down in her seat, and moaned quietly. They were going to get discovered for sure, and it would be her fault. 

“Hermione, you alright?” Harry whispered to her. 

“No…” Sophie groaned. 

Harry didn’t know what to say to that. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You’ll get it next time,” he tried. Sophie ignored him. No she would not get it next time. 

~~~

Sophie stomped out of the classroom, angrily. Now a teacher was suspicious, and it was all her own stupid fault. She didn’t spare a glance for Harry or Dex as they hurriedly followed after her. 

“Hermione,” Harry tried,

“No! Don’t talk to me.” Sophie was stressed. There was no way she would be able to keep this up. Maybe Keefe could cast a spell to make her sick for real, then she wouldn’t have to go to anymore classes. Her only other hope was that between Keefe and Dex she would be able to learn, what was it, four years worth of magic? completely overnight. 

“Hermione,” Harry tried again. “I know you’re having a rough day…”

“You know Harry,” Sophie said, turning around. “You don’t know. You haven’t the slightest clue about how horrible my day has been.”

“Maybe you could… tell me?” Harry asked weakly. “Ron and I, we’re here to help you. You know that right? And if its something I did…”

Sophie stopped and crossed her arms. She looked at Dex in question with a raised eyebrow. Dex shook his head ‘no’ vigorously. Sophie tried to open her mind to communicate with Dex, but stopped when she remembered that her powers didn’t work anymore. She nodded her head at him instead. It was time to end this. Dex clasped his hands pleadingly, begging her to stop. Sophie ignored him.

“Harry,” she started. “I was reading a book the other night. It was a very upsetting book.” Dex face palmed and sat on the ground, his head in his hands. Harry threw Dex a concerned look, then nodded to show that he was listening. Sophie continued, “in the book, aliens from outer space switched bodies with the main character’s best friends.”

“ Hermione ,” Dex hissed. Sophie held up a hand to silence him. They needed allies, and if anyone was going to find out their secret, she wanted it to be Harry. 

“The aliens were nice aliens, and all they were trying to do was figure out a way to get back into their own bodies. But they didn’t know how. However,” Sophie held up her hand and frowned at Harry, “the main character got suspicious. So the aliens decided to tell him the truth.” Sophie snapped her fingers. “The stupid main character,” she said tersely, “let’s call him Harry , decided to tell all his other friends and teachers about the aliens. The aliens were killed in a brutal and horrible way. The end.” Sophie crossed her arms and glared at Harry.

Harry looked at her in bewilderment. “Ummm…. that’s um… a pretty rotten story?” 

“A weird story,” Dex laughed loudly. “Ha ha! Maybe Hermione ,” he said through gritted teeth, “should do a little less reading .”

“Harry,” Sophie said, completely ignoring Dex. “What would you have done in the story?”

“Come again?”

“If your friends bodies were inhabited by aliens,” Sophie explained, “what would you have done?”

“We’re doomed,” Dex said in disbelief. He threw his hands into the air. “We’re toast. Harry, don’t listen to her,” he pleaded, “I think she ate something weird at lunch.”

Harry backed up a few steps. “Look, guys.” He backed up a little more. “I don’t know what this is. It’s been a very weird day, and I don’t really want to choose sides or anything…”

“Answer. The. Question.” Sophie hissed. 

“Hermione, just leave him alone…” Dex started,

“DEX, WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP? !? I CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE, OKAY?!?! I CAN’T DO MAGIC, I CAN’T KEEP LYING, AND WHAT KIND OF STUPID NAME IS HERMIONE ANYWAYS?!?! IF HE’S GONNA FIGURE IT OUT, IT MIGHT AS WELL BE ON OUR TERMS…”

“You’re… not Hermione?” Harry interrupted weakly.

“NO!!!” Sophie gasped, breathing heavily. 

“Annnd, you’re… not Ron?” Harry turned to Dex. 

Dex paused, took a deep breath, and reluctantly nodded his head.

Harry looked at them both, then laughed hesitantly. “Yeah, sure. Good one. You got me!”

“I’m not joking Harry,” Sophie said, as calmly as she could. “Neither of us know how or why, but this morning we woke up… well… in your friend’s bodies.” 

Harry breathed through his teeth, and started pulling at his hair, making it stand up even more than usual. “Sorry, just… gimme a minute.” He looked at Sophie with his eyes wide. “You’re not… aliens… are you? ”

“Sophie, I told you that was stupid,” Dex hissed.

“The story was just an analogy,” Sophie sighed. “We’re elves.”

Dex face-palmed. “And I thought Keefe was the idiot who was going to blow our cover. Way to soften the blow Sophie. ‘We’re elves.’ What in the Lost Cities…”

“Elves as in house elves? Like…” Harry used his hands to measure a short person, and he mimed enormous ears.

“We look like normal people,” Sophie explained. “You know, I was actually raised as a human. I only found out a couple of years ago that I was an elf. Trust me, the level of weird you’re feeling right now? I get it.”

“....”

“....”

“What?” Sophie said defensively. “Just trying to relate…”

Dex looked at Harry, concerned. “Sophie, I think he’s going into shock. He’s all… pale and sickly looking.”

“No, no. I’m perfectly fine,” Harry said somewhat hysterically. “Let me just lay out what I understand from this conversation so far. One: my best friends are missing and human-elf things are now in their bodies.”

“Correct,” Sophie said.

“Two:” Harry continued, “there’s another elf thingy named Keefe…” Harry’s eyes widened. “It’s Draco!! Draco is Keefe!!”

“Yes,” Dex sighed. “Unfortunately.”

“And do you have to call us elf-thingys? Elf works fine. Or, you know, you could call me Sophie. The other one is Dex.”

“Sophie, Dex, and… Keefe.” Harry put his hand to his forehead and leaned against a wall. “Wow.”

“You… gonna be alright?” Dex asked. 

Harry took a moment to answer. He got off the wall and took a deep breath. “You know,” Harry said. “I’m actually super relieved.”

“... come again?” Dex said dryly.

“I mean, everything makes sense now. Your sudden memory loss, Hermione’s weird behavior, Draco being so nice and becoming everyone’s best friend…” he shook his head. “Honestly… I’ll take it. Elves? Sure.” He turned to Sophie. “You know, I only just learned that I was a wizard myself. One day this giant man walks into my house, turns my cousin into a pig, and takes me to a magic castle.” Harry laughed nervously. “I’m just glad that I don’t have to be friends with Draco, and that it has nothing to do with Voldermort for once.”

Sophie crossed her arms and looked at Dex smugly. Dex stared at them open-mouthed. “You’re just… you’re just going to accept it? Just like that?”

“Why not?”

“We just told you,” Dex reiterated carefully, “that there is a whole world beyond yours that you have never heard of, and…”

“Heard it before,” Harry said. “It’s not as surprising the second time. It’s just kinda…” Harry motioned with his hand, “meh.”

“THANK YOU!” Sophie laughed. “That’s what I’m saying!”

“You guys need therapy,” Dex muttered. “What about your friends?” he tried.

“I’m sure Dumbledore will know what to do,” Harry said. “This isn’t the first time one of my friends has been possessed.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Sophie said at the same time Dex said, “WHAT?!”

“But… there’s not more of you is there?” Harry asked. “Like, is anyone else… an elf?”

“Not that we know of,” Sophie said. 

“But who knows,” Dex sighed. “This… Dumbledore… he won’t kill us, right?”

“I doubt it,” Harry said offhandedly. 

“You doubt it!?” Dex shouted.

“Dex,” Sophie admonished. 

“I’m sorry,” Dex grouched, “but I’d rather be 100% certain that we won’t be killed by some crazy lunatic once he figures out we’re not supposed to be here!”

Harry paused thoughtfully. “Well… I’m sure if you explain your situation you’ll be fine. Besides, you seem like nice people so far. Unless…” Harry looked closely at Dex. “Unless you are working for Voldemort…”

“OKAY! I vote not going to see Dumbledore and I say we run. Sophie? Let’s go.” Dex grabbed her hand and tried to pull Sophie away. 

Sophie stayed where she was and yanked her hand out of his grip. “Dex, I know you don’t like it, but we need help. We can’t just hope we find something in the principle’s office that will magically make everything okay. We need to go back home so we can stop the plague and prevent war with the ogres.”

“And I need to fight a dragon tomorrow and not get killed by a psychotic evil wizard that rose from the dead,” Harry added. “Also, I need to sneak my convict dog - godfather some chicken so he doesn’t starve or have to leave his cave.”

Dex was speechless.

Sophie grinned at Harry and laughed. “Finally, somebody whose life is crazier than mine.” They gave each other a high five. “Your godfather is a dog?”

“He can turn into a dog,” Harry explained. “Magic. “

~~~

“Annnd 60,” Tam muttered under his breath. He’d been counting for fifteen minutes. That, added to the five minutes he wasted arguing with Keefe would probably be juuust right. 

One of the first things Tam did when he got to the Black Swan’s hideout was time how long breakfast was so that he could miss it and not have to talk to anybody. The food was always cold, but it was so worth it. 

He put his ear to the door. Earlier there had been yelling and arguing. Mr. Forkle said something then he heard Keefe’s voice and tuned out the rest of it. That had been around minute five, so it was probably safe now…

He lightly pushed open the door and looked to his left and right. Nothing. Ever so quietly, he tiptoed in the direction of the kitchen. He peered inside. No one. Perfect. Everything was going according to plan. Tam waltzed over to the pantry and grabbed a bag of his favorite elf snacks. He tore open the bag and munched as he leaned his head against the wall. He knew he only had a few minutes of bliss before…

“Tam!”

Tam froze mid-snack. Please no. Please not so soon…

“Tam!” The voice called again. “I know you’re in here, it’s been 20 minutes already.” 

He relaxed. It was only Linh. “I’m in the pantry,” he called. “And keep your voice down. I don’t want…”

“You don’t want to socialize with anyone in the morning, I know . But I had to come see you before you disappeared for the rest of the day.” Linh rolled her eyes smiling as she came into view. “You know, the people here aren’t that bad. You could use some friends.”

“I have friends!” Tam huffed, annoyed. “You are my friend…”

“I’m your sister ,” Linh corrected.

“That counts,” Tam said. “And Sophie is okay …”

“You just like Sophie because she totally annihilated Exilium,” Linh smirked. “Have you even talked to her since coming here?”

Tam frowned and crossed his arms. “I would… if that blond freak wasn’t always next to her.”

“Keefe?” Linh supplied.

Tam finally cracked a grin. “I prefer ‘blond freak.’”

“How about Dex?” Linh asked. “He seems pretty cool.”

Tam grimaced again. “Linh?” He said.

“Yes?”

“I have had a very bad day.”

“It can’t have been that bad… you haven’t been awake for very long…”

“That’s the problem,” Tam moaned. “Stupid Dex kept me up all night working on his stick box. Then, he goes and locks himself in a closet, faints, and wakes up with memory loss.”

“Tam,” Linh interrupted, concerned, “You didn’t hurt him, did you?”

“I didn’t do anything to him!” Tam yelled. “I may have lightly threatened him… but that doesn’t count!!”

Linh sighed. “You know, I do like it here, so please don’t get us kicked out.”

“ Fine, I’ll try ,” Tam ground out.

“So reassuring,” Linh said dryly.

“Anyway,” Tam continued, “Dex wakes up and pretends not to know his own name, then Keefe comes in a starts being even more of an idiot that usual, then I hear yelling in the hallway, and when I finally snuck out to eat breakfast, you come in here and start judging me for doing absolutely nothing wrong.”

Linh hugged Tam. “I’m sorry you’ve had a bad day,” she said. 

“Yeah, now you’re sorry,” he griped. He took a deep breath. “Anyway, did you hear anything from Mr. Forkle about our schedules for the day?”

“I didn’t hear anything, I slept in so I could eat breakfast with you.”

“Great. I guess that means I can go back to my room after this.”

“Tam, we have to help. The gnomes are dying, and you remember that we are supposed to break Prentice out of Exilium in just two more days.”

“…”

“Tam,” Linh said. Tam inched closer to the exit. “ Tam ,” Linh said warningly. Tam made a break for it and dashed into the hallway. Linh sighed and ran after him. “Tam you get back here right now or I swear…” she stopped mid threat as she ran into Tam’s back with an “oof!” “Tam, what in the world…?

“Tam, Linh, good. I was looking for you both.” Tam glared at Linh as Mr. Forkle strode into view. “There is a… situation.”

“What kind of situation, sir?” Linh asked. 

“Well…” Mr. Forkle looked stressed. He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, then closed it. All three of them stood in an awkward silence for a full minute. 

“Well…” Tam prodded. 

Mr. Forkle gave Tam a sharp glance, then sighed deeply. “To be honest, I’m not really sure how to tell you.” He thought for a minute more then said, “Tam, was Dex acting… strange this morning?”

“Dex is a nerd, he always acts strange,” Tam stated. Linh punched him hard in his side with her elbow. “What I meant ,” Tam amended, grimacing in pain, “is that Dex fainted in a closet and woke up not knowing his name. But I think he was just trying to annoy me,” he added and flinched as Linh looked at him warningly. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it, he was up all night working so he’s probably tired, like me ,” he said under his breath.

“Is Dex okay?” Linh asked, concerned. 

“I certainly hope so,” Mr. Forkle said. “Because right now, I currently have no idea where the real Dex, Keefe, and Fitz are.”

“If you find Sophie you’ll most likely find them…” Tam muttered.

“What do you mean by ‘the real’ Dex, Keefe, and Fitz?” Linh asked at the same time. 

Mr. Forkle gestured to three shapes behind him. Dex emerged, fiddling nervously with his hands, then Keefe with crossed arms and nose upturned, and lastly Fitz who was nervously running his fingers through his hair. 

“Introduce yourselves,” Mr. Forkle said. 

Dex stepped forward. “Hi again,” he nodded at Tam. “Umm, my name is Ron… I’m in my fourth year at Hogwarts… as a wizard,” he added for ‘clarification.’ “I hate spiders, and I have lots of red-haired siblings…. Um… we live in a tree? Kinda like this one, but not as nice…”

“We don’t need your whole life story, Weasley,” Keefe interrupted bitingly from behind. He strode forward. “I am Draco Malfoy, and I don’t care who you are or what you say. If I’m not returned to Hogwarts by tomorrow, well…” he smiled nastily, “Let’s just say you don’t want to know what will happen to you if I am not returned.”

Fitz stepped forwards. “I’m Cedric, Cedric Diggory,” he said, embarrassed. “This is really weird, but it's nice to meet all of you.”

Tam grimaced and Linh stared in open-mouthed shock. “What kind of sick joke is this?” Tam finally said. 

“It’s not a joke Mr. Song,” Mr. Forkle sighed. Somehow these three have switched bodies with your friends. I hope this is all of them, but there might be more. Until we get this situation figured out, I want you to keep an eye on them.”

“What!?” Tam yelled. “There is no way I’m going to babysit these… these…” 

“Make sure they don’t get into any trouble and try to explain what is going on in our world. I’ve already told them that they are elves and they have powers. I’m going to investigate this matter. Good luck.” Mr. Forkle left (rather quickly). 

Tam watched Mr. Forkle leave in disbelief. 

“Great. Fantastic,” Tam groaned. “Whoop de doo.”

Chapter Text

Keefe strode out of Charms with a self-satisfied smirk. Crabbe and Goyle flanked him on either side. 

“Draco, I had no idea you were so cool!” Crabbe gushed. 

“The look on professor Flitwick’s face!” Goyle wheezed. “It was priceless! You literally did everything right on the first try!”

Keefe smiled, and said modestly, “well, you know, I didn’t get the second assignment quite right…”

“No kidding,” Crabbe laughed. “You did something even cooler . He asked you to make a feather float, but you turned it into a peacock and then made that float.”

“You sure showed him,” Goyle laughed. “Idiot.”

Keefe winced at that. He actually really liked professor Flitwick. But the class itself… seriously, what was the point? He didn’t understand why everyone else had such a hard time with it. He was planning on making his peacock breathe fire, but he figured that it would give the poor Professor a heart attack.

He glanced over at his two… minions? That’s probably how Draco saw them. He didn’t know why Draco kept them around. Crabbe and Goyle got tiring after a while, but he guessed they were loyal. 

Keefe smiled as the three of them turned the corner and he saw Harry, Dex, and Sophie. He turned to Crabbe and Goyle. “Catch you guys later?”

Crabbe made a sour face as he noticed where Keefe was looking. “I still don’t understand why you hang out with that wizard trash now.”

“And not just them,” Goyle added. “It’s those Weasley brothers too.”

Keefe sighed. He’d already been over this. Time to break it down again. He repeated the story he had come up with in his head, then said, “I’m the best wizard at this school, right?”

“Right,” they said in unison. 

“And the best wizard needs to be the most popular, right?”

“Right,” Crabbe said. “But aren’t you already the most popular?” Goyle said, confused.

“Yes,” Keefe agreed. “With everyone except the famous Harry Potter and his friends. So, if I make friends with Harry…” he gestured for them to continue.

“Then…” Goyle tried. “Um…”

“Then you stab him in the back later and we have a good laugh?” Crabbe continued.

Keefe smacked his forehead and took a deep breath. “Then,” he corrected, “I have a powerful ally .”

“And powerful allies give you free stuff! And do what you want!” Goyle said victoriously. 

“… sure…” good enough. “So…”

“So we’ll see you later, boss,” Crabbe finished. “Good luck.” They saluted him and left him alone. 

Keefe took a deep breath. Time to apologize to Harry for… he wasn’t exactly sure why he needed to apologize, but Dex seemed convinced that he had done something wrong. Seriously, all he had done was try to be nice. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he needed to be mean to Harry? Sophie agreed with Dex that they needed to keep their real identities a secret, so he would try not to be the one to spoil everything. 

With a sigh, Keefe pulled at the hair he had so painstakingly brought back from the dead and smoothed it down over his eyes. He made the best I-hate-everyone-face that he could muster, and walked towards the group in a perfect impersonation of his father Lord Cassius. 

“Harry Potter. Well, well, well.” Harry turned to look at him, Dex rolled his eyes, and Sophie smiled. Keefe sniffed and turned up his nose in an imperious manner. He hoped he wasn’t overdoing it. “I suppose you think you’re being smart, holding your school books and all.”

“…What?” Harry asked. 

“Only a nerd would dare to show their books in public. So that must be what you are. A nerd .” Keefe crossed his arms and turned the corners of his lips down in a frown.

“What are you doing now?” Dex sighed. Keefe winked at Dex and mouthed, ‘I got this,’ and continued:

“I would apologize for upsetting you earlier, but since I’m an incompetent brat who doesn’t care about your feelings, I won’t .” Keefe smirked in what he hoped was a I’m-better-than-you type of smirk. 

“Keefe…” Sophie started. 

Drat. Sophie slipped up. Keefe thought fast. He had to cover for her… “Keefe? Who is that? Sounds like a great person, but I cannot be him, since I am most definitely not a great person.” 

“Keefe, what in the world are you doing?” Dex asked. 

“I…” Keefe tried.

“We told him the truth just a minute ago,” Sophie interrupted. “You can stop the act.”

Keefe looked at them in surprise. “You told him about…” he mimicked pointy ears to signal ‘elf.’

“ Sophie told him,” Dex corrected. “Anyway, why are you suddenly acting like a jerk?”

“I was trying to help the mission!!” Keefe yelled. “You made a big deal about keeping everything a secret, so I was trying to do what you asked!”

“No offense,” Harry interjected. They all turned to look at him. “But you should never be an actor. Your name is Keefe, right?” Keefe nodded. “Cool. Watching you try to be Draco was actually way more painful and suspicious than the nice guy you were being before.”

“Ha!” Keefe looked at Dex victoriously. “I knew I was doing the right thing before. You should have never doubted me.” Dex opened his mouth to retort, but Keefe cut him off. “Anyway, Harry, it’s nice to actually meet you for real.”

“And I’m so glad that you are not actually Draco,” Harry agreed. 

“Trust me, me too,” Keefe said. “He sounds like a piece of work.” Keefe ruffled his hair again and pretended not to hear Dex mutter, “you’re also a real piece of work.”

“Anyway, now that that’s all straightened out, we need to do three things,” Harry said. “We need to find Dumbledore and get all of you home, I need to practice for the Triwizard tournament tomorrow, and I need a few chicken legs from the kitchen.”

“Chicken legs?” Keefe asked. 

“For his godfather who is a dog but is not a dog,” Sophie explained. 

“Sure… okay,” Keefe said. “Annnd moving on, if we’re going to tell Dumbledore, I guess that means I can’t break into his office?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to break into Dumbledore’s office,” Harry said, “and there are probably traps or something. Last time I tried to break into something Dumbledore was guarding I almost got eaten by a three headed dog.”

“But that’s what makes it fun,” Keefe whined. 

“Yeah, I vote not getting eaten,” Sophie said.

“But you could add to your massive list of near death experiences,” Keefe quipped, smiling. Sophie glared at him and he held up his hands in surrender.

“Harry just offered to take us to Dumbledore. We can go now that you’re here,” Dex said. 

Harry shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “Look, guys,” he said. “Just to warn you, Dumbledore is a bit… eccentric. I never know what to expect when I see him.”

“I think we can handle it,” Sophie stated confidently.

“But you think this Dumblebore…” Keefe started.

“Dumble- dore ,” Sophie corrected.

Keefe rolled his eyes, grinning. “Fine, this Dumble- dore will actually be able to help?”

“Of course!” Harry smiled. “I’m pretty sure Dumbledore knows everything.”

~~~

“I have… no idea.”

Harry looked at his mentor in shock. He would have bet his last chocolate frog that he would never hear Dumbledore say those words. He looked behind at his ‘replacement friends.’ They did not look impressed. Keefe’s eyebrows were raised, Dex had his head in his hands, and Sophie… well, he couldn’t ever tell what Sophie was thinking behind all that hair. 

“I believe you Harry,” Dumbledore continued. “You have proven yourself again and again.” He tugged at his beard thoughtfully. “A secret race of elves.”

“He looks old enough to have been at the founding of Atlantis,” Keefe mumbled to Sophie. 

“Keefe!” She elbowed him in the ribs, shooting him a glare. 

“No, he is right,” Dumbledore chuckled. “I am indeed very old and I thought I knew just about every secret the world had to offer. An old man’s hubris I suppose. As soon as you think you know everything, something comes along and shows you that, in fact, you know absolutely nothing.”

Harry sat down on a chair and groaned. Dumbledore should have known what to do. Dumbledore always knew what to do. And with the challenge tomorrow…

“Well,” Dex said, interrupting his thoughts. “This has been nice. It was lovely to meet you. I’m glad at least that you don’t want to kill us.” He took a deep shuddering breath trying really hard not to panic. “So, if you don’t mind, we are going to leave now. Plan B to search your office will obviously be pointless, so plan C is to find Mr. Forkle and…”

“You are going to leave Hogwarts?” Dumbledore asked raising an eyebrow.

“Well, this isn’t detention, so I don’t see why not,” Keefe quipped. 

“I would not suggest it,” Dumbledore said dryly. 

“Why not?” Sophie asked. Harry noticed that the three of them had already made several steps towards the door. He wondered what crazy things had happened in elf world that made them so jumpy. 

“For many reasons.” Dumbledore gestured for them to come closer. When they did not, he sighed. “Harry, tell your new friends that they have no reason to be uneasy. I will not hold them here if they ultimately wish to leave.”

“Um, you guys can trust him,” Harry said lamely. Dex raised an eyebrow. Harry sighed. “Look, there was this one time that I had to battle a giant snake, a snake that was like, bigger than a house. And if you looked at it, you would die , so Dumbledore sent his pet bird…” Said pet bird was currently hideous, missing most of its feathers, and it looked like it was about to die. Harry faltered, “well, its a phoenix you know, which means that it looks cooler after it bursts into flames… anyway, he sent this bird to poke out its eyes, then a hat fell down and I pulled a sword out of it and killed it… so, um, he’s cool.” 

Keefe, Sophie, and Dex did not look convinced. Harry winced. Keefe stepped forwards and looked at the phoenix Fawks suspiciously. He removed his wand from his cloak and said, “Incendio!” Fawks gave a screech and immediately burst into flames. Keefe jumped back with a yell, and Harry and Sophie gasped.

There was a stunned silence.

“Keefe, WHAT DID YOU DO!?” Dex yelled. “YOU CAN’T JUST SET PEOPLE’S PETS ON FIRE!! NOW THE SUPER POWERFUL WIZARD WILL BE MAD AT US AND…”

The fire suddenly went out and there was nothing left of Fawks but a pile of ashes. 

The room was silent. Dex was deathly pale.

“... my bad,” Keefe said apologetically. 

“Keefe,” Sophie said, almost in tears. “ Why… ”

“I thought, you know… well Harry said …” Keefe broke off, distressed. “I mean, I guess I thought it would be cooler if it burst into flames? Like Harry mentioned in the story?”

Silence.

Then Dumbledore burst into laughter, and Harry soon joined him. They couldn’t stop, and soon Dumbledore was bent over and Harry was on the floor clutching his side and howling. Keefe gave a nervous chuckle, and looked back at Dex and Sophie in confusion. They were not laughing. 

Harry finally calmed down enough to gasp, “guys, its okay” he laughed again and said, “I actually did the same thing my second year.” He grinned at Dumbledore. “Well, I didn’t set Fawks on fire myself , but I was scared I was about to get kicked out of Hogwarts when it happened.”

“So… we’re not going to be brutally murdered and stuffed in his closet?” Dex asked.

“Everything is quite alright,” Dumbledore assured. “The bird will be fine.”

“What if you blow the ashes away?” Keefe asked, eyeing the birdcage.

“Keefe, if you dare ,” Sophie threatened. 

“I’m just asking!!” Keefe said defensively. “I mean, if it can come back from the dead, what are the limitations?”

“Keefe, just quit it with the bird, okay?” Dex said wearily. He looked at Dumbledore. “Since you haven’t destroyed my idiot friend,”

“Hey!”

“... my idiot friend ,” Dex continued, then I guess we can trust you.”

“Much obliged,” Dumbledore grinned. “Then I will continue. There are many reasons that you should remain at Hogwarts. I am sure Harry has told you some of his struggles with Voldemort.”

“I know that he is an evil wizard,” Dex agreed.

“He is the most powerful evil wizard in the world,” Dumbledore corrected. “And somehow, he keeps managing to come back from the dead. Until we are sure that this is not his doing, I would like to keep you here. For safety reasons, of course.”

“And the other reasons?” Sophie asked.

“Well,” Dumbledore said, pushing up his spectacles. “Tomorrow is the first challenge of the Triwizard tournament. Harry will need his friends there, even if they are not his usual friends, and I frankly cannot deal with this issue until I make sure tomorrow goes as planned. Harry,” Dumbledore said, looking at him with concern, “will you be alright?”

Harry nodded. “I have a plan sir. I was hoping to practice some more, and I’m extremely nervous beyond all reason, but I think it might work.”

“Very good,” he said. “The final reason is that I am sure that these ‘elves’ are something that the Minister of Magic has kept from me, and I would like to speak with him before we do anything else. I do not believe it is safe for you to leave Hogwarts at the moment, and I do not even know if you are from the same planet or reality as this one.”

Dex’s eyes widened in shock. “Do you really think…”

“It is mere speculation,” Dumbledore interrupted. “For now, get some much needed rest. I daresay you will find tomorrow interesting at the very least.”

“But… what do I do about my classes?” Sophie asked. “Dex and Keefe seem to be doing just fine, but I can’t even get the most basic of spells to work.”

“Hermione’s brilliance was always less natural ability and more her abundance of knowledge. You need to study,” Dumbledore said frankly. “Ask Harry for help when he isn’t busy with the tournament. Keefe here has… vividly demonstrated that it is more than possible for you to do the same magic as your host bodies. Don’t worry, Miss Granger’s perfect scores will be fixed once this issue is dealt with.”

Sophie took a deep breath. Then another. “You can also call in sick,” Dumbledore allowed. 

“Thank you,” she sighed. 

He looked at all of them over the rim of his half-moon spectacles. “Do not tell anyone else of what has happened. If you find any more elves let me know. Have a good night.”

Harry got the signal and showed his new friends out of Dumbledore’s office. As the door closed behind them, Sophie said, “Great. So we are in the same position that we were in before. We can’t do anything.”

“Dumbledore will…” Harry started,

“The old wizard basically said he would deal with us when his schedule allowed it,” Dex finished. “We can’t wait that long. There are things happening in our world that we need to help with. I’m not just going to sit back and do nothing.”

“So… secret passages?” Keefe asked, a twinkle in his eye. 

“Yes,” Dex sighed. “We need to leave, so we’ll use the secret passages. Let’s go tonight.”

“Tomorrow,” Harry corrected. “At least wait until tomorrow after the tournament. Then I can help.”

“Tomorrow then,” Dex allowed. “Right after the tournament.”

~~~

“Now, just stare into each other’s eyes and think about… love .”

“WHAT?” Sophie (Hermione) stumbled backwards looking at the aggressively cute boy in front of her who was Fitz but also apparently Cedric Diggory . 

“Mr. Song,” Mr. Forkle boomed from across the training yard. “Not helpful.”

“Hey,” Tam shot back, “you forced me to babysit these creatures, so let me do it my way. I’ve watched Fitz and Sophie do this a million times and its always about love and stuff. Right Sophie?”

“Umm…” Hermione was bright red. She still hadn’t told the group of elves that she was, in fact, not Sophie Foster. Apparently that idiot Ron had panicked and gotten himself, Draco, and Cedric discovered already. But… it was a relief to know she was not alone. However, she wasn’t ready to trust Mr. Forkle. Not yet.

“Oh wait!” Tam snapped his fingers interrupting her line of thought. “I knew something wasn’t right.” He walked over to Draco and grabbed him by the shoulders. Ignoring his outraged protests, he dragged him in between Hermione and Cedric. “You, are supposed to monitor their emotions with your ‘feeling powers.’ This makes the telepathy sessions extra interesting because Sophie is in love with both of you, so you just end up wasting time being embarrassed instead of actually accomplishing anything.”

“Mr. Song, I realize that you do not wish to help me with this…” Mr. Forkle started, rubbing his temples.

“ And , since you’re Keefe, you need to say annoying things to make Sophie turn bright red and make Fitz want to punch you.”

“I refuse to use these stupid powers to help you freaks,” Draco sniffed. 

“Perfect,” Tam said. “You’re already a natural. Now all three of you, commence the staring.”

“Mr. Song,” Mr. Forkle yelled. “I would ask that you show more respect for my training methods. And you are hardly being fair to Sophie.”

Hermione looked nervously at Tam. “Fine,” he huffed. “Just… tell each other about yourselves so that your telepathy is stronger.”

“It’s no use,” Mr. Forkle sighed. Tam threw down his notebook and stomped away. “Sophie, I am sorry, but I think we should wait to rescue Prentice until all of this gets sorted out. Without the real Fitz, I’m not sure you will be strong enough.”

“Oh, um of course,” Hermione said.

“That’s it?” Mr. Forkle raised an eyebrow.

“Whatever you think is best,” she affirmed.

Mr. Forkle looked at her strangely. Shoot. Maybe Sophie usually put up more of a fight. “Sir,” Cedric called. “I know that I am not the real Fitz, but I do not want innocent people to suffer on my account.” He stood up straight. “I am willing to at least try to use these new powers, if it means we can help even one person. And who knows? Maybe it will be fun.”

Draco looked at Cedric with disgust. “Hufflepuff,” he mocked. 

“I can try to build… something ,” Ron offered. “I mean, my dad collects muggle stuff so maybe I know more than I think I do.”

Mr. Forkle looked thoughtful. “Show me what you can come up with, and I may reconsider. But if we do not have a solid plan in two days, we may have to wait for another opportunity to get Prentice.”

Chapter Text

Hogwarts was… pretty impressive. Dex hated to admit it, but the massive castle (though nowhere near as shiny and sparkly as Foxfire) was actually really cool. As he followed Keefe to the Gryffindor stands he marveled at the size of the stadium where they would be watching the competition. Keefe went to sit down next to the twins (Dex tried to ignore the weird stares that Keefe was still getting, but he guessed it was a lost cause at this point) and Sophie went to sit next to him. Heaving a deep sigh, Dex sat next to Sophie and tried to ignore the nerves in his stomach. 

“What was this challenge again?” Dex said to Sophie over the tumult of the crowd. 

“He said he was supposed to fight a dragon,” Sophie yelled. 

“A dragon?” he asked. He remembered something about dragons… his mom had mentioned them once. They were like… lizards with wings? That shouldn’t be too bad. “You think he’ll be alright?”

“A dragon you say?” Fred appeared behind Dex and ruffled his hair. Dex grimaced and tried to move away. Fred smirked at him. “If Harry is fighting a dragon, he will most likely get roasted alive.”

“Our brother Charlie deals with the brutes,” George added. “Nasty creatures. Big as a house. Breath fire. Impenetrable scales…”

“Loads of fun,” Fred jumped in. “Tried to ride one once, Charlie didn’t take it too well. Not the nicest of animals, that’s for sure.”

Dex winced. Hopefully Harry would be okay. But he had defeated a scary mean wizard or something when he was a baby right? He should be fine…

“Think we could try and catch one after the tournament?” Keefe asked, grinning widely.

“Way ahead of you,” George winked. “Meet us by the Forbidden Forest after the challenge.”

“Kee-Draco, don’t you dare,” Sophie warned. “We don’t need you to get eaten by a dragon on top of everything else.”

“Hermione, I never knew you cared so much,” Keefe wiped a fake tear from his eye. Sophie rolled her eyes and smiled helplessly at him.

“What’s this Draco?” Fred teased. “Is Granger your girlfriend now?”

“Tough luck Ron,” George consoled. “You’ll get ‘em next time.”

“I’m not anyone’s girlfriend!” Sophie yelled at the same time Dex said, “I don’t want her to be my girlfriend!” 

Dex glared at the twins. “I already tried and got rejected, so don’t rub it in.”

Fred and George looked mildly uncomfortable. “Oops,” they said in unison. “Well,” Fred said, “this has been sufficiently awkward. George? We’re getting snacks.” They both got up and left. 

Keefe started to join them, but Sophie pulled him back down. “Keefe, you are the only one who can do magic,” she whispered. “We might need you.” 

Keefe sighed dramatically and looked longingly after Fred and George. “But we were going to dare each other to eat Bertie Bot’s Every Flavor beans. Last time I got a diaper flavored one. Not sure what that is, but it was extremely unpleasant.” Sophie gagged and Dex sighed. He had no idea what he was going to do with these two.

~~~

“I will now be distributing the dragons,” Ludo Bagman, one of the judges for the tournament, announced. 

Harry took a deep breath. This was it. The moment he had been dreading all semester. He replayed the plan in his head. He would summon his broom, and then… then he would try not to get eaten by a dragon that could fly and breath fire at him. Maybe he should have come up with a different plan. But Hermione was right. He did not have the magical skill to fight a dragon. Flying was his best chance. 

“Umm…” Cedric stuttered. “Sir, I…” He looked unnaturally pale and he was shaking slightly. Harry frowned at him. Cedric was never scared of, well, anything really. And Harry had told him that the first task was dragons, so he should have had plenty of time to prepare.

Ludo Bagman glanced at Cedric. “Don’t worry son, its normal to get nervous right before the game. Just show them what you’ve got.” He walked over to Cedric with the bag of dragons, and Cedric, grimacing, closed his eyes and chose a dragon out of the bag. “Ah, the Swedish Short-Snout,” Bagman said appreciatively. “That means you get to go first.” Ludo clapped Cedric on the back, oblivious to the fact that he seemed to go even paler. 

He passed out the rest of the dragons. Fleur got the Common Welsh Green and was going second, while Viktor received the Chinese Fireball and was third. That meant Harry…

“And for Harry, the Hungarian Horntail.” Ludo looked at him with a worried frown. “The most ferocious. I don’t envy you that.”

Perfect. Harry took a deep breath. He looked at Cedric and joked nervously, “Wanna trade dragons?”

Cedric didn’t answer.

“Hey,” Harry waved his hand in front of Cedric’s face. “Cedric? Are you okay?”

“Cedric, you’re on in two minutes,” Ludo called. 

He did not look good at all. He tottered forwards and Harry hurriedly reached out to steady him. “Cedric…”

“Look,” Cedric gasped. “I can’t fight a dragon.” He looked at Harry pleadingly. “There has to be a way that I can get out of this tournament.”

“One minute!” Ludo yelled.

“Please, Harry.”

“Cedric, you don’t have a choice.” Harry was confused. He may not have particularly liked Cedric, but he knew he wasn’t a coward. “Are you sick?”

“This may sound crazy, but I have to tell somebody,” Cedric whispered in a panic.

“THIRTY SECONDS!” Ludo said, looking towards Harry with raised eyebrows. Harry shrugged in response.

“I can’t fight the dragon, because I am not Cedric ,” he said. 

Shoot.

Well, this was just fantastic.

“I’ve figured out how to do some magic, but not nearly enough to survive a giant monster. You see, actually I’m a…”

“You’re an elf,” Harry finished tiredly. 

“I’m an elf… wait. What?” Not-Cedric looked at Harry in confusion, which quickly turned into suspicion. “How did you know…”

“You’re an elf in my friend’s body since, what, two days ago? And your elfy powers aren’t working and you need to get back to your world to stop some kind of monster plague thingy from killing small planty people and you don’t know who to tell because you think you might get killed for replacing Cedric.”

Not-Cedric gaped at Harry, his mouth open in shock. 

“Mr. Diggory, you have to go out now ,” Ludo hissed. “The crowd is waiting for you.” Ludo pushed between Harry and Not-Cedric and dragged Not-Cedric by the arm towards the tent flap. He looked at Harry with pleading eyes. 

“Um, Mr. Bagman!” Harry called. He was going to regret this, but he couldn’t let some stupid elf get killed. “Cedric can’t fight the dragon today, he ummm…” think Harry, “he has dragon-osci-popilus…?” What the heck. “He’s sick,” he quickly amended.

Ludo just looked at him in bewilderment. “Dragon-osc…” he tried to say. “What is that?”

Not-Cedric wasn’t saying anything. Harry raised his eyebrows and sharply pointed his head towards Ludo. He couldn’t do everything by himself. 

“Oh! Yes!” Not-Cedric got the hint. Finally. He coughed pitifully a few times. “I’m afraid its very, um…”

“Very deadly towards dragons,” Harry finished for him. Not-Cedric looked at him skeptically. Harry shrugged his shoulders and mouthed go with it . 

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to get the dragon killed ,” he laughed nervously. “So I’m afraid I’ll have to withdraw from the competition.” He sighed heavily in (unconvincing) disappointment.

“Withdraw from the competition?” Fleur entered into the competition. “Is that even allowed?”

“If he wants to withdraw, let him,” Viktor Krum added. He walked up behind Fleur. “Then everything is fair. We would only have one Hogwarts champion this round.”

Not-Cedric looked at Ludo hopefully.

“I’m afraid that’s not an option,” he said. “I’m sure whatever… sickness you have will be fine. Besides, once your name has been drawn out of the Goblet of Fire, you have to compete, no matter the circumstances.”

This was not good. “Shouldn’t he get checked out by the nurse first?” Harry tried in a last-ditch effort to buy some time. If the elf had just told somebody before the day of the competition , maybe they would have been able to figure something out. But now…

“No time, the competition was supposed to start three minutes ago,” Ludo said regretfully. “Good luck Diggory my boy, out you go!” He pushed him out of the tent to the clamor of a roaring crowd, that was quickly hushed by a deep roar of a dragon. 

~~~

Fitz gasped as sunlight flooded his vision and the chanting of the crowd assaulted his ears. He barely noticed that Harry’s panicked expression mirrored his own before the tent flap closed behind him. 

A loud roar bellowed nearby. Fitz closed his eyes, took a deep breath and slowly turned around to face the dragon. 

It was so much worse than he thought it was going to be.

So much worse.

When Fitz had woken up in Cedric’s body just two days ago, he had handled it pretty well. Considering he had no idea where he was, no idea who he was, and no idea if he was going to be able to get home or not. He tried to blend in, he was friendly to the other students, respectful to his teachers, and tried his best in his classes. He didn’t do great, and he got some odd looks, but on the whole no one paid any attention to him. He had planned to tell someone his secret once he had some idea of what in the world was actually happening. 

The first problem was Cho Chang. Right in the middle of his first day, she had come up to him after lunch and kissed him. 

Contrary to popular belief, Fitz was not used to random girls kissing him for no reason. He avoided her after that. He felt bad, but he figured it would be worse for her if she found out he actually wasn’t Cedric than if he ignored her completely. Cedric would not come home to a happy girlfriend. 

An unhappy not-actually-his-girlfriend he could deal with. Then he ran into Harry for the first time. That’s when he first learned about the dragon. And once he figured out what a dragon actually was , he decided that he most certainly did not want to fight one.

Upon further investigation, he learned that he wouldn’t just have to fight a dragon. Oh no. Apparently, this idiot Cedric had signed him up for not one, not two, but three impossible life-threatening you-have-to-be- really -good-at-magic tasks. Life-threatening, and 100% you-cannot-escape-or-else-bad-things-will-happen mandatory tasks. 

He really hated Cedric.

Ironic considering he was now Cedric.

He shaded his eyes as he looked up at the dragon. Well, maybe he wouldn’t be Cedric for much longer after all. 

As he was contemplating Cedric’s certain demise, the dragon lunged for him, struggling against its chains. Fitz jumped back and pointed his wand-stick at it. Not that it would do much good. The only spells he’d managed so far was a floating spell, and the spell to fill his cauldron up with water. 

Over the loudspeakers, the headmaster’s voice announced, “Champion Cedric Diggory representing Hogwarts and the Hufflepuff House!!” Cheering erupted from the stands and the headmaster motioned for silence. “Mr. Diggory,” he called, “your task is to retrieve the golden egg from the dragon’s nest. Good luck!”

Good luck?

That was it?

He noticed that behind the dragon there was a small nest. In the center was a golden egg. The crowd quieted in anticipation. No doubt they expected some utterly brilliant magic trick. 

The minutes ticked by. Still he didn’t move. 

The crowd was getting restless. People started whispering. Fitz’s face burned in humiliation. “Nice dragon…” he tried. The dragon did not look impressed. In fact, it looked almost bored . 

~~~

”Ludo, you have to let me out there!” Harry said. The elf-who-was-not-Cedric had been out there on his own for almost five minutes. He hadn’t heard anything, so he must not have been eaten. 

Yet.

”Mr. Bagman…” Harry tried again. 

“Harry, look, Cedric is a very competent wizard,” Ludo said tiredly. “It is against the rules to interfere.”

”But…”

”Do not ask me again!” He said, annoyed. 

Harry shut up abruptly. The other champions were giving him odd looks, but avoided talking to him. They were still mad that he was in the competition. 

He grimaced. If he could have avoided this whole mess, he would have. 

Harry paced around the tent, acutely aware that each passing second was another second that the elf could be eaten or burned alive. If he could somehow tell Dumbledore… but no, Dumbledore would not be allowed to interfere either. If only Hermione was here. She always knew what to do. 

He wondered if the other three, Dex, Sophie, and Keefe knew who this new elf was. If he had been in the muggle world he could have given them a quick call and explained the situation.

Harry paused mid-step. His godfather, Sirius Black, had been able to contact him with magic. And a fireplace. Harry didn’t have a fireplace. But maybe…

He looked over at the other champions. Fleur looked nervous, and when she noticed him watching her she gave him a glare and turned her back on him. Oof. Okay, not Fleur. Krum looked pretty confident. When he caught Harry’s eye he raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t do anything overtly hostile. 

Krum it was. 

Heaving a sigh, Harry walked over to Krum. “So…” Krum didn’t respond. 

Harry tried again. “Victor Krum?”

“No, you may not have my autograph,” he said with a heavy accent. 

“I don’t want your…” Harry spluttered. “Look, I’m just trying to make conversation, alright?”

”Well, stop trying.”

Harry didn’t give up. “Do you ever get homesick?” He asked. 

Krum ignored him. 

“I figured that it would be hard to be so far from Durmstrang for so long,” Harry said. 

Sighing, Krum turned to Harry. “Why are you doing this?”

”I, um…” Harry was so embarrassed. But, he figured, better to be embarrassed than to let some random elf-kid get eaten. “I think we got off on the wrong foot,” he improvised. “It would be nice to be on good terms with the other champions.”

”Then you shouldn’t have cheated,” Krum pointed out matter-of-factly.

”I didn’t…!” Harry started. He took a deep breath. Time to get straight to the point. “I was wondering, do you have a way of contacting your friends in Durmstrang?”

Krum was suddenly suspicious. “Why do you want to know?”

Harry tried not to get frustrated. “It’s just,” he said, “I know that I would miss my friends if I left during the school year. Writing letters just isn’t fast enough, even by owl.”

“I write letters,” he said gruffly, and abandoned Harry.

Well.

That was a total bust.

Harry winced as he heard another roar from the dragon outside. If enchanted phone calls weren't an option…

Harry went to an abandoned corner of the tent and took out his wand. Ever so subtly, he moved back the tent flap and whispered, “Expecto Patronum.” His patronus, a brilliant white stag, formed and tossed its head in anticipation. “Find Ron, Hermione, and Draco,” he instructed. Looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching, he guided his patronus towards the stands in the hopes that maybe the three elves would be crazy enough to follow it so he could explain the whole situation. 

His heart drummed in his chest as anxiety took hold of him. He knew he was rapidly running out of time. 

~~~

”Wow, this Cedric guy is totally lame,” Keefe complained loudly. A few of the Gryffindors gave him dark looks, but he could have cared less. 

“Why isn’t he doing anything?” Sophie asked. 

“He’s probably slightly nervous about fighting a giant monster that breathes fire that is bigger than a house!” Dex said. “Come on guys, cut him some slack.”

“Isn’t he supposed to be like this amazing wizard though?” Keefe asked. “Something doesn’t seem right…”

Dex shrugged and helped himself to some of the snacks that Fred and George had brought them. As he reached again for seconds (much to the annoyance of Keefe), he paused. Whisperings had broken out among the stands. A giant ghost-reindeer was running up the field. 

“Um, guys?” Dex said, his hand still in the snacks. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Do you mean the ghost, or the fact that you haven’t taken your hand out of my food yet?” Keefe grouched. 

“Of course I mean the ghost,” Dex hissed in annoyance. 

“What is it?” Sophie said. “It’s… really pretty.”

”Well don’t touch it,” Dex said. “It might be cursed.”

”I don’t think you’ll have a choice,” Keefe said dryly. “It’s coming this way.”

The Gryffindors gasped as the deer elegantly bounded over their heads and came to rest right in front of Dex. Dex took a step back in alarm, and the deer stepped again and stared right into his eyes. 

“I think we’re supposed to follow it,” Keefe said without missing a beat. 

“What? Are you crazy?” Dex said out of the corner of his mouth. He shifted to the side and the deer followed his motion perfectly. 

“Hermione may have rejected you, but at least the ghost wants to be your friend,” Fred murmured from behind. George snickered. 

”Not helping ,” Dex said in irritation. 

“Everyone is looking at us,” Sophie said. “The headmaster is looking at us.”

“Crap,” Dex groaned.

“I’m going to follow it,” Keefe said decisively.

”Yes, Draco!” George whooped. 

“No, Draco!” Dex said at the same time.

Keefe ignored Dex and hopped down off the bleachers. He motioned towards the deer (which was still only looking at Dex). Keefe started to move away. “Here deer deer deer, nice deer,” he said, motioning it forwards. “Come on.”

“This is so weird,” Fred said. 

“Shhhh,” George put a finger up to his mouth, shushing him. “I want to see what happens.”

The deer finally stopped bothering Dex, and rolling its eyes (apparently ghosts can roll their eyes?) it begrudgingly went towards Keefe. As it passed him, Keefe turned and followed the deer, giving everyone a wink. 

“Why… just why…” Dex moaned. 

“If it was dangerous, one of the teachers would have stopped it,” Sophie pointed out. “It might be like a magic prank or something.”

Static came over the loudspeakers again, and an announcer said, “The headmaster has promised to deal with the strange appearance of the deer patronus…”

Patronus?

“… and in the meantime, let’s give Cedric a good cheer! He looks like he could use some encouragement…”

Dex tuned out the rest of the announcement as he watched the headmaster descend the balcony and head in the direction of Keefe and the ghost thingy. Was there ever a normal day at Hogwarts?

~~~

Fitz could float objects and fill a cauldron with water. That was it. But he couldn’t just stand there forever in front of the dragon like an idiot. 

Taking a deep breath, he said, “Wingardium Leviosa!” He directed his concentration at the golden egg and pointed his wand at it. Ever so slowly, the egg floated up… and then immediately fell back down crushing some of the other eggs. The dragon let out a roar of rage.

~~~

”Seriously? You?”

Draco, no, what was his name again? Oh yeah, Keefe grinned.

“I was trying to contact Dex,” Harry stated. He did not feel like dealing with Draco. Even if it wasn’t the real Draco, this Keefe character was pretty obnoxious as well.

“Thank goodness that plan failed,” Keefe said, interrupting Harry’s thoughts. “Trust me, you’re better off.”

Harry wasn’t so sure. 

“So…” Keefe drawled. “The giant ghost reindeer.”

Harry looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “What about it?”

”Oh, nothing,” Keefe said. He paused for a second, then said, “It was pretty… subtle .”

Harry took a deep breath. And then another. And then another. He opened his mouth to retort when some very familiar wizard robes flashed in the corner of his vision. 

“Harry!” 

“Headmaster!” Keefe called with a salute.

”Not you,” Dumbledore said dismissively. Keefe gaped at him in shock. “Harry, why is your patronus galloping around the fields in the middle of the tournament!? I hope you know that cheating of any kind is not allowed…”

“Dumbledore, thank goodness,” Harry breathed in relief. “I was just about to tell Keefe, but we have a major problem.”

Dumbledore paused and pushed his glasses up his nose. He looked at Harry seriously. “Voldemort?”

“No, not…”

“Am I ever going to get to meet this Voldemort?” Keefe interjected. Dumbeldore and Harry stared at him. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. “Just saying,” Keefe shrugged. “You keep bringing him up, and he’s supposed to be scary or something… I don’t know, at this point he just sounds like a bad bedtime story for scaring kids. Like, is this dude even real?”

“VOLDEMORT KILLED MY PARENTS!!” Harry yelled. “He gave me this scar! I fought him in my first and second year of Hogwarts!” Harry took several gasping breaths. “You can’t just…”

Keefe took a step back. “Sorry, Harry… I didn’t mean…”

“Nevermind,” Dumbledore interrupted. “Harry, just tell me what’s wrong.”

“Cedric Diggory is one of them,” Harry nodded towards Keefe. “He’s an elf. And he’s currently fighting an enormous dragon without any clue how to use magic…”

“Which elf?” Keefe asked. 

“Huh?” 

“Did he tell you his name?” Keefe said again. 

“Ummm…” Harry scrunched his nose in thought. “No, I’ve just been calling him Not-Cedric in my head.”

“I hope its not one of the Neverseen,” Keefe muttered. 

“The Neverseen?” Dumbledore asked. 

“The super-evil group of people in my world,” Keefe clarified. “My mom is the leader.”

“Oof,” Harry said. 

“Yeah, lots of emotional trauma,” Keefe agreed. “But anyway, did he seem… evilly to you?”

“No,” Harry said. “Just scared out of his mind.”

“OOOO! I bet its Bangs Boy!!” Keefe grinned. “That would be awesome . He’s always been a cowardly sad little elf,” Keefe clarified.

“Noted,” Harry said dryly. He turned back to Dumbledore. “So… can we get him out of the tournament? Since, you know, he’s not actually Cedric?”

Dumbledore was silent for a full minute. He took a deep breath and said, “No.”

Keefe and Harry waited for a beat. He did not elaborate.

“No?” Harry yelled. “That’s it? So we just let him die?”

“If it is Bangs Boy, I have no objection,” Keefe joked.

“Seriously dude?” Harry said in exasperation. “Can you please just not?” Harry turned back to Dumbledore. “There has to be something we can do.”

“ You as a champion, can do nothing,” Dumbledore said. “ I can do nothing as both headmaster and judge. Young Mr. Malfoy, however…” Dumbledore raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“I can do whatever the heck I want,” Keefe finished grinning. “And I have just the plan.”

Chapter Text

“This is soooooo boring,” Draco moaned. He was sitting in the common room of the freakishly large tree that these elves had decided was suitable for living in. He wondered if all elves lived in trees. Maybe they were part bird? According to Mr.-Fat-and-Wrinkly, elves could float, so…

Ron interrupted his thoughts with another obnoxious hum. Draco was learning things about Ron that he never wanted to learn. Such as, every time Ron was thinking really hard about something he couldn’t figure out, he would hum. And since he never managed to figure anything out, there was a lot of humming . 

Ron hummed again. “WOULD. YOU. SHUT. UP.” Drace said, punctuating each word. “I swear, you are the most annoying person I have ever met. Maybe even more annoying than that idiot Hermione Granger.” The blond girl elf… Sulfur? Sarah? whatever, gave a twitch of annoyance. Weird. “You have been working on that piece of junk for over an hour. Have you even figured out anything ?”

“Shove off, Malfoy,” Ron muttered. 

“At least he’s trying to do something to help,” Cedric added. Always the pacifist. Draco hated Hufflepuffs. “I don’t see you doing anything.”

“In case you’ve forgotten Diggory ,” he sneered, “my stupid elfy power is ‘feeling emotions.’ That Tam fellow wasn’t exactly a first rate teacher for one, and for another, I still don’t understand why on earth I am supposed to care .”

“Be careful,” Ron said shakily. “Tam scares me.” He looked over to the couch where their appointed ‘babysitter’ was snoring quietly. “I don’t think we should do anything to make him mad…”

“And why not?” Draco said. “It’s not like saying his name will summon him or anything. He’s no Voldemort, he’s just an angsty scruffy kid who’s too big for his britches.”

Tam snorted in his sleep and moved slightly on the couch. Ron and Cedric shuddered. Draco smirked. Simpletons.

“ Have you made any progress Ron?” Sulfur asked from her chair. Draco rolled his eyes. Of course Ron hadn’t made any progress. But Sulfur was determined to butt into the situation anyway.

“I’m not sure,” Ron admitted. He held up a sad-looking device with a stick on top of it. “Mr. Forkle said that I was supposed to try and hack into Exillium or something, but I don’t really know what that means… and this device is really complicated…”

“It is a literally stick attached to some wires,” Draco said dryly. “If you want to use it, light it on fire and roast a marshmallow.”

They ignored him. “Maybe I could take a look?” Sulfur took the device from Ron and set it gently onto her lap. “Have your powers not helped you with this at all?”

Ron grimaced. “Well, I can hear, like, a million whispers in my head for suggestions, but my mind keeps wandering, and none of the suggestions make sense, and every time I latch onto something I think I can understand and I try to do it, the wires tell me not to… it’s really weird,” he finished lamely. 

Sulfur stared at the device intently. “I’ve read a few books on hacking into things in my spare time,” she said. Wonderful for her. Nobody cares. “I wonder…” She put her tongue between her teeth. “Have you tried blah blah blah blah …”

Draco tuned the rest of the discussion out. From the blank look on Weasly’s face, Ron had too. He glanced over to Cedric Diggory. He looked like he was fighting a headache, but still he kept up with the cheery attitude. In fact, no one seemed to be even slightly concerned with the fact that they were all currently in different bodies in a different world being held hostage in a tree. 

Except for… Draco glanced over at Sulfur who was still animatedly discussing the inner workings of whatever hacking was. For some reason, the only person whose emotions he could read without coming into contact with her where Sulfur’s. Which was… weird. Mr. Farty-Smelling had mentioned something about Sulfur having more powers than anyone else. So maybe that was it? Draco wouldn’t have cared except for the fact that he felt a constant pressuring all-consuming anxiety whenever she was remotely close to him, which was driving him insane . 

“Sulfur!” he called. Nobody answered. Shoot, maybe that wasn’t her name. “Sarah!” No response. Cedric gave him a weird look. Draco rolled his eyes. “Hey you!” he yelled, “girl with the blond hair!” Finally she turned to look at him. 

“What.” She said, tersely. “I’m a little busy. And my name is Sophie by the way .”

He didn’t bother responding to that. “What are you hiding?” he asked. Might as well get straight to the point.

“Hiding?” She said affronted. She poorly concealed a momentary look of panic.

“Yes, hiding,” Draco confirmed. “I can feel emotions, remember? So I can tell if you’re lying” - well, at least he knew he could potentially tell if someone was lying, even if he hadn’t figured out how to yet, but she didn’t need to know that - “and I know you’ve been close to a panic attack all day. Just get it off of your chest so I can go back to my day in peace.”

Sophie looked at him, mouth opening and closing. “You…” she finally said. “Are a little twerp.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. She obviously had no idea who she was talking to. He was Draco Malfoy . He had the purest wizard blood… although, Mr. Frumpy had essentially called the entire wizarding race half-breed elves. Well… he obviously didn’t know what he was talking about. And from what he had seen, elves were useless pansies that could barely do a quarter of the things that even a first-year wizard could do. 

“Well, this twerp knows you are hiding something,” he sniffed. “So go on, share with the group. We can’t save this guy from Elf-prison,”

“Exile,” Sophie corrected,

“Gazuntite,” Draco responded, “as I was saying, we can’t save him without doing ‘professor Tam’s’ little ‘trust exercises’ now, can we.”

Sophie glared at him. Then she took a deep breath. “You’re right.”

“Just go ahead and tell us already!” Draco shouted, before he registered what she’d said. “Wait, what? Just like that?”

“Well, there’s no use hiding it now if you go to Mr. Forkle and tell him I’m hiding something!” Sophie yelled. “And anyway, you’re right. We need to be on the same page if we want to rescue Mr. Prentice without something going wrong. And besides, Ron and Cedric deserve to know the truth.” She turned to Ron. “Especially you, Ron.”

“Huh? What?” Ron said. 

“She’s going to tell us her special secret,” Draco yelled over to him. “Dimwit,” he muttered under his breath.

“I’m… not really Sophie Foster,” she said, hesitantly. “I’m Hermione.”

Ron gaped at her in shock, and a little hurt. At least she had the decency to look slightly ashamed of herself. 

“Granger?” Malfoy asked. He laughed, “well at least now I know why you are so annoying.”

Hermione glared at him. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ron asked. 

She looked at him guiltily. “Well, no offense Ron, but I was kind of surprised that you told everyone your identity right at the start.” 

“I was freaking out!” Ron yelled. “I woke up in a closet! I was being yelled at by a creepy guy! A tree tried to eat me!”

“Still,” Hermione said. “It might have been dangerous.”

“So why reveal yourself now oh Smartest-of-All?” Draco intoned in a bored voice.

“Because I want to help,” Hermione said. “Because I actually care whether or not someone lives or dies.”

“In case you’ve forgotten,” Draco said. “The guy is in jail . It’s not like they’re going to execute him or anything. The only one likely to die in this entire scenario is yours truly, and frankly, I don’t really feel like encountering death in the near future.”

“You know, he does have a point,” Cedric pointed out.

“Cedric!” Hermione said. 

“I’m sorry Hermione,” he apologized, “but we are waaay out of our depth here. Maybe we should focus our efforts on getting back home as soon as we can so that the real elves can use their powers to take care of the situation.”

“But…” Hermione started. 

“Just, think about it. Okay?” Cedric pleaded. 

~~~

“Crowbar?”

“Check.”

“Wire-cutters?”

“Check.”

“Snacks?”

“...”

“...”

Keefe sighed deeply. “George?”

“Fred ate the snacks, not me,” George said, offended. 

“You helped!” Fred yelled.

“Marginally. Only marginally my dear Fred,” George allowed.

“If by ‘marginally’ you mean you ate my entire stash of Chocolate Frogs, then sure,” Fred grouched. 

“What?! I never…”

Keefe tried to hide his grin. He had eaten all the Chocolate Frogs. And the peanuts. And

the popcorn. Annnd… pretty much everything else before the twins had noticed. Not that he would ever admit it. In his defense though, he had practically only ever eaten vegetables his entire life. Granted, they were amazing taste-like-candy vegetables. But human food was just cool . Especially wizard food. 

“It doesn’t matter guys,” Keefe said. “I forgive you both. I think we’re pretty much good to go anyway.”

Fred gave George a playful-somewhat-irritated shove and turned his attention to Keefe. “You know, Draco, when you said you wanted to see the dragons, I didn’t think you would go this far.”

“What, you can’t handle it?” Keefe smirked. 

“What Fred means is, a week ago he thought you were a total crybaby,” George explained. 

“And now…?”

“Now,” Fred interjected, “I am sufficiently impressed.”

“Just one question,” George asked. “Could you sign this waiver?” George took a paper from inside his robe, and Fred offered Keefe a pen. 

Keefe looked back and forth between them both and raised an eyebrow. “What’s this?”

“Nothing much,” George said.

“Just a little something to…”

“...protect our interests, as it were,”

“in case, you know, something unfortunate were to happen…” Fred finished. They looked at him expectantly. 

Keefe took the paper warily, and glanced at it. “I can’t read any of this,” he said blankly.

“No need!” George reassured hurriedly. “Just sign your name at the bottom and…”

Before he could finish, Keefe whipped out his wand and recited a quick translation spell. “That should do it,” he said grinning. “Now, what exactly does this ‘waiver’ say?” 

“There’s really no reason to…” Fred tried. 

“In the case that terrible egregious injuries or loss of life occur,” Keefe read, ignoring him, “the only one responsible for resulting medical bills, expulsion from school, and/or jailtime service is one Draco Malfoy … all destruction of property will be at the expense of Draco Malfoy … all bad moods and/or dealing with Snape will be undertaken by Draco Malfoy …” Keefe raised his eyebrows and glanced at the twins. 

“Nothing personal Draco,” Fred said, nervously. 

“We just like to cover all of our bases,” George added. 

“It feels slightly personal,” Keefe said dryly. “Besides, no one is going to die .” Maybe get seriously injured though. “At least,” he amended, “if it all goes according to plan.”

“Exactly. If it all goes according to plan,” Fred said. “Which it might not.”

“We have too many pranks left to try,” George said, 

“and we still have parents to disappoint,” Fred continued. “We can’t get expelled in our fourth year. Maybe the fifth.”

“That is a good point,” Keefe paused, considering. “Hmmm… what if…” he looked at the waiver and made a few adjustments. “There. Perfect.” 

The twins peered over his shoulder. The new waiver read: All actions taken during the first event of the Triwizard Tournament were at the behest of Lucius Malfoy … the only one responsible for resulting medical bills, and/or jailtime service is Lucius Malfoy … all extra expenses and anger to be directed towards Lucius Malfoy …” After the twins were done reading, Keefe signed Lucius Malfoy at the bottom of the waver, taking care to make the letters look extra fancy and excessively self-important. 

“Brilliant,” the twins breathed.

“Dearest Father has more than enough money to take care of any ‘accidents,’” Keefe agreed. “In the meantime, we have some dragons to free.”

~~~

The murmuring of the crowd was getting louder. Fitz wondered how long they would just let him stand here until they made him fight the dragon. Maybe, just maybe, eventually they would let him leave? He doubted it. If he was lucky, the dragon would fall asleep from boredom and he could steal the egg afterwards. 

Fitz sighed. He missed his friends. If Keefe were here he’d probably try to charge the dragon with nothing but his bare fists. Sophie would probably manage to blow it up… somehow. And Dex would make a crazy gadget that miraculously ended up saving everyone. 

A glint of color caught his eye from behind the stands in the direction of the sun. He shielded his eyes. Was that…no… surely not…?

“DRAGONS!!!” The announcer on the loudspeaker screamed loudly. “THE OTHER DRAGONS ARE LOOSE!! EVERYONE RUN BACK TO THE CASTLE!!”

Crap.

A bad day is always capable of getting significantly worse.

People were fleeing the stands in mass panic. The teachers all congregated in the center of the arena around the guy with the long beard (the headmaster?) and started murmuring incantations. The loud screaming irritated Fitz’s dragon and it gave out a loud ROOOAR, causing him to yelp in fear and stumble backwards. He froze as he noticed all of the dragons headed straight for him and the nest of dragon eggs. 

“Mr. Diggory,” the headmaster called out to him. “I believe considering the circumstances that it would be best for you to leave and find shelter in the castle!” The headmaster turned back to the other teachers. “The rest of you, help me get these dragons back under control.” He pushed back his spectacles and murmured angrily, “I am going to kill that stupid elf…” 

Elf? Fitz stared at the headmaster stupidly. Surely he had heard wrong…

”Move! Get out of here!” The potions teacher yelled at him. “You are in the way!”

Fitz blinked out of his stupor and ran off of the field without a word. Once he was a safe enough distance, he watched in disbelief as the teachers faced the rapidly oncoming dragons.

He was so confused. How could the dragons have just escaped? What kind of security did they even have at this school? Does this ‘almost-dying’ thing happen often? Fitz brushed his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. He needed to…

“What are you doing?”

Fitz jumped ten feet in the air. “What in the world!?” He yelled, heart pounding. A blond boy stared at him with an eerily familiar smirk. “Enjoying the show?”

Fitz took a deep breath and tried to calm down. ”Who are you,” Fitz asked abruptly. 

“Sheesh, no need to be so jumpy. My name’s Draco.” Draco held out his hand. 

Fitz shook it warily. “Cedric,” he said tersely. “And what do you mean am I enjoying the show? Our teachers are about to get roasted alive .”

”Nah, they’ll be alright,” Draco said, still smiling. 

“What do you mean? There are four angry fire-breathing dragons out there. I couldn’t even deal with one!” 

“From the looks of it, you couldn’t have dealt with a blind puppy,” Draco said dryly. You were just standing there the whole time. Very boring.”

”What…?” Fitz said. “I mean, I tried my best…” What was this guy’s deal? Did he really do that badly?

”Yes, well, it seems that it’s pretty convenient that all the dragons just happened to escape making it so you don’t have to finish the challenge,” Draco said pointedly. 

“But at least then I was the only one in danger!” Fitz said. “Now, the entire school could be destroyed! How did those dragons even get out anyway?”

”Oh, I let them out,” Draco grinned.

What.

Did he just say…?

”Come again?” Fitz said slowly.

”I released the dragons as a distraction so that you wouldn’t have to do the tournament. You’re welcome.”

What.

The.

Absolute.

Heck.

”Are you out of your mind !?!?!” Fitz yelled. Draco took a step back, but the stupid smirk never left his face. 

“Maybe a little,” he confessed. 

“A little!?”

”Look, I enchanted all of the dragons, so it’s no big deal. Really, you should be thanking me.”

Fitz could not believe what he was hearing. Who was this guy? “Enchanted?”

Draco sighed. “Just watch what happens when they attack the teachers if you’re so scared.”

Fitz opened his mouth to protest, but stopped at Draco’s raised eyebrow. He looked over at the teachers, and… could not believe what he was seeing.

”I know, impressive right?” Draco said. “I thought of it last night when I was going through possible pranks. Initially, I had decided against releasing the dragons, but since you needed my help I figured it would be a good idea.”

Fitz didn’t answer. He was too busy watching the dragons breathe flowers out of their mouths instead of fire. He almost laughed at the looks of sheer bafflement on the teachers faces. Almost. He refused to give this Draco person the satisfaction.

”Their claws and teeth won’t hurt either,” Draco continued. “I was able to make them temporarily turn into rubber. And they are each lighter than a feather, so it should be easy to catch them and if they step on anyone it can’t hurt.”

”How…?”

”I’m just brilliant,” Draco said. “Can’t help it really.”

Fitz didn’t know how to respond to that. He had not been around wizard magic for more than a couple of days, but even he could tell that what Draco had done was… unconventional at worst, and absolutely astounding at best. He looked over at the teachers. They seemed to be finished with rounding up all the dragons, thanks to Draco’s enchantments. 

“So… why did you decide to help me?” Fitz asked. 

Draco tilted his head and stared at him.

He didn’t stop staring.

Fitz waited for a whole minute in excruciatingly uncomfortable silence. ”…what is it?” He asked. “What’s wrong with you?”

”I can’t decide,” Draco muttered. He kept staring.

”Decide what?” Fitz asked. “You’re freaking me out.”

”You’re pretty talkative, which means you’re not Bangs Boy…”

Fitz froze. No. Way.

”But you’re also kind of wimpy, so I don’t think you’re Fitz,”

”Wimpy!?” Fitz interrupted.

”Although,” Draco continued, “Your hairstyle is similar to Fitz’s, and you are currently aggressively popular for no reason, so maybe…”

”Keefe?” Fitz asked. 

“Bingo!” Keefe smirked. “What, did you think you were the only one trapped here?”

”Of course it had to be you,” Fitz moaned. “Why did it have to be you?”

”So, I guess you're Fitz then,” Keefe smirked. “Welcome to the we-got-transported-into-freaky-wizard-world club.”

”That’s a terrible name,” Fitz said, grinning.

”It’s a work in progress,” Keefe admitted. 

Fitz took a deep breath. He was so relieved that he wasn’t alone anymore. Even if it was just Keefe… Fitz paused, gripped with a sudden thought. “Wait, are there any more of us here?” He asked. 

“Sophie and Dex,” Keefe said. “And both of them are probably suuuuper mad at me right now for the whole ‘dragon thing,’”

“Understandably mad,” Fitz muttered. Sophie too? Fitz smiled. He had been wondering how she was doing. 

“Quit smiling weirdo,” Keefe said. “She won’t be able to see you anyway.”

”What? What’s wrong with Sophie?” Fitz asked.

”She’s got curly hair in this world,” Keefe smirked. “And she has no idea how to take care of it. On the first day, she refused to come out of her room.”

Oof. Fitz tousled his own perfect hair. This Cedric kid was really popular, and for a good reason. Fitz grinned at Keefe. His Draco persona had a decidedly… greasy quality, no muscle whatsoever, and… “Hey Keefe,” Fitz said mischievously, “I noticed that “The Hair,’ isn’t doing too hot. It looks a lot shabbier than normal.”

“Yeah, yeah, Mr. I-don’t-have-to-work-to-be-perfect,” Keefe groused. “Honestly, it’s a miracle that it’s in as good a shape as it is. You should have seen it on day one.” Keefe shuddered. “Anyway, I figured I should catch you up with everything that you missed. The only people that know we are elves are Harry, the guy you were with in the tent, and Dumbledore the Headmaster. We’re trying to keep it on the down-low for everyone else for some reason,”

”Probably so we don’t go to human jail or get attacked by angry wizards,” Fitz supplied. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever safety whatever. Basically, we are going to snoop around later tonight and you’re welcome to join. We’re meeting outside of Gryffindor.”

”Gryffindor?” Fitz asked. 

Keefe face-palmed. “It’s the red house! You are yellow, I’m green, and Sophie and Dex are red. Got it?”

”Sure…”

”It’s a miracle you haven’t been caught yet,” Keefe pointed out. “You can’t do anything .”

”Not all of us are super-nerds,” Fitz said under his breath.

”Nope! Dex is a nerd. I am a genius. There’s a difference. Besides, I still don’t see why none of you can do magic yet. All you do is read the book and follow the instructions. It’s very straightforward.”

”Nerd,” Fitz repeated. 

“Shut up.”

Chapter Text

“Biana! Glad you’re finally up. You do realize its like 4:00 in the afternoon?”

“It’s a Saturday.” Biana yawned. “Nothing has been happening for days. It won’t kill you if I sleep in a bit.”

“You’d be surprised.” Mr. Forkle pulled out a chair. “You might want to have a seat for a minute.”

“What?” Biana could not conceal the concern in her voice. “What happened?”

“Well…”

~~~

“Sooooo.” Cedric looked out at the giant glass pyramid.

“That’s… a lot of sparkles.” Hermione. Always pointing out the obvious.

Draco was annoyed. Mr. Fork told him that elves were better than wizards. Yeah right. He would not believe it, especially because of the shoddy tree accommodations he had appeared in (surely Mr. Forkle was an old quack if his idea of a house was a tree). But now he saw that normal un-pruney elves lived in giant crazy palaces. Very impressive palaces. 

“Hogwarts is still cooler.” Draco looked around with forced indifference. “It’s just a triangle really.”

“Pyramid,” Ron corrected. Draco looked at Ron in bafflement. “It’s Geomentry.”

“Geometry, Ron,” Hermione supplied distractedly.

Could he just go home? Please? Why did he have to go to ‘elf school?’ Weren’t they supposed to be fugitives or something? 

“Why are we here?”

“Beats me.” Tam came up behind Draco followed closely by his sister Linh and the purple girl Biana. “I would have been happy if I never had to see this place again.”

“I haven’t been here… in many years,” Linh said.

“You heard Mr. Forkle.” Great. Return of the know-it-all. Draco wished he could use magic to make himself go temporarily deaf. “He said we are practically useless at the base, so the least we can do is educate ourselves.”

“And spy,” Ron chipped in. “He told us to see if we can find out anything about the plague.” 

“He said that to make us feel better,” Biana groused. “He doesn’t expect us to find anything useful. I can’t believe that I have to come to school and babysit you.”

“I’ll try to do everything I can to make it as easy as possible…” Cedric started.

“No! Just, no. Please, Cedric, was it? Please don’t talk to me. It is weirder than weird that you have possessed my brother’s body and I do not want to think about it. We’re going to school because the Council decided that it was the best course of action. Do I care what the Council thinks? No. Do I trust them? No. Do I think that they may at some point try to kill one or all of us? Yes. Do I get a say? Well, do I?” Biana glared at Ron.

“Um, no?”

“NO! Of course not!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been asleep for over 24 hours,” Tam groused under his breath.

“WHAT WAS THAT BANGS BOY?? YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY TO ME???”

“...”

“I thought not.”

“Biana,” Linh tapped her on the shoulder. “Do you really think that we’ll be safe?”

“No.” Seeing Linh’s face, she relented, “well, I suppose so. Mr. Forkle just told the Council that we were all wizards-turned-elves so that they won’t bother us. But I’m worried for Soph… I mean Hermione. The Council has been trying to get Sophie to do their bidding for years. Now that she’s vulnerable, no offense Hermione, I’m scared they are going to make their move.”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” Cedric’s face had that annoying I-am-the-hero-of-my-own-fantasy-novel look. Draco sighed deeply. He was so done with this lot. Why couldn’t some of the Slytherin crowd have been here instead?

“And how will you do that?! Huh?” Biana looked like she was on the brink of a panic attack. “As far as I know, I am the only one here who knows how this school works. Tam and Linh I met like a month ago, and all the rest of my friends have had their brains overtaken by whatever you are.”

“Wizards.” Ron puffed out his chest.

“Gazuntite.” Biana took a deep breath. “I am completely alone except for Linh’s moral support, Tam’s angst, and Hermione’s brain.”

“You also have Ron’s stupidity, Cedric’s overconfidence, and my resolution to punch every one of you at least once,” Draco offered. 

“We’re so dead.” Biana sank to the floor. “We are so so dead.”

Well. On that encouraging note. Guess it’s time to go to school.

~~~

“It’s simple. We find the statue of the one-eyed witch, you tap the hump, you say ‘Dissendium,’ go down the tunnel, come out of a cellar into a place called Honeydukes, and then we’re free.”

“Keefe, are you sure?” Sophie glanced at him. “It sounds like the twins are pulling your leg.”

“He’s right,” Harry offered. “It’s one of the passages on my magic map.”

“Magic map,” Fitz repeated dryly. “Sure.”

Harry, Fitz, Keefe, Sophie, and Dex had gathered in the dining hall after the disaster of the first challenge had been somewhat cleared up. Essentially, Cedric aka Fitz had been given low marks and had not been allowed to take the egg that was the clue for the next challenge (since it was obvious he would not have been able to retrieve it). The other champions had gone as planned, albeit a little late and with a significant decrease in the amount of spectators. Harry had done well with his broom trick, though he’d almost gotten singed a couple of times. He was just relieved that it was over. 

“I’m sure my godfather will be able to help. But we have to be careful not to be spotted. If he is caught, they’ll send him back to Azkaban.”

“And Azkaban is…” Dex prodded.

“The giant prison in the middle of the ocean full of ghouls who suck out your happiness and your soul.”

“Right. Well, I regret asking that question. How are we planning on getting out?”

“Keefe, did you make the polyjuice potion?” Sophie asked.

“You can’t just make a polyjuice potion,” Harry interrupted. “It’s a process that takes several weeks. He couldn’t have made it in a single evening.”

“But… you have aging spells,” Keefe pointed out.

Harry looked at him. Keefe looked back. “What!?”

“Aging spells,” Keefe repeated. “You know, it takes something and makes it older…”

“You know what? Just, nevermind. We have a way to make it to Hogsmeade unseen, and that’s what matters.” Harry let out a deep breath. He hoped beyond hope that Sirius would be able to help somehow and make everything go back to normal.

“I’m going to call Dobby to see if he can bring us some chicken.”

“And Dobby is?” Dex asked.

“A house-elf,” Harry explained. “He works here now, ever since I freed him by giving him a sock.”

“...”

“Harry,” Dex said delicately, “you do realize that every single thing you say makes you sound absolutely bonkers.”

“Says the magic elf inhabiting my best friend’s body.”

“... fair point.”

”Are the house elves the creatures that give out the free food in the kitchens?” Keefe asked.

”You’ve been to the kitchens?”

”It’s a magical place.”

”Right… I guess Fred and George took you. Yes, the house elves work in the kitchens. They also come to the common rooms every night to clean, but they try to stay hidden.” Harry took a deep breath. He knew he would get an earful from Sirius for not being careful enough, but he needed someone to talk to. Dumbledore had proven to be spectacularly unhelpful, and Harry had no idea what was going on. He liked to feel like he was not completely alone in this crazy scenario. It was a relief to know that Dumbeldore was on his side, and it would help to have Sirius as well. He planned on paying a visit to Hagrid later. It would even be nice to see Dobby. 

“Dobby? Are you there?” Nothing. The elves were looking at him funny.

”Is that it?” Fitz asked. “Should you try yelling louder?”

”This usually works.” Maybe he was busy? “Dobby!”

”We could always visit the kitchens,” Keefe suggested.

”We don’t want to risk getting caught on the way there,” Sophie pointed out. “No one is supposed to be out and about at Hogwarts right now. And we need to save the polyjuice potion for visiting Harry’s godfather.”

”Dobby!” Harry hoped he was okay. He’s never ignored Harry’s call before. 

“We can just buy something when we get to Hogsmeade,” Dex said. “It would probably be easier than carrying chicken down a musty secret tunnel.”

Without warning, there was a loud popping sound. Dex jumped ten feet in the air and Fitz gave a startled yelp. Harry barely hid a grin. “Guys, I’d like you to meet my friend Dobby.”

”Sup.” Dobby stood rigidly in front of them with his arms crossed. He was frowning and tapping his foot impatiently. 

“He’s kind of… moody, isn’t he?” Dex poorly concealed his whisper to Sophie. 

“Dobby, are you alright?” Harry was concerned. 

“Fine.”

Keefe snapped his fingers. “Oh! I remember you! You were the house elf that sat in the corner polishing the kitchen knives and threatening all the other elves.” He gestured to Harry, “this one keeps telling us how nice and bubbly you are, so I didn’t recognize you at first.”

Threatening the other house elves? Dobby? “Dobby, you’re not wearing your socks. The socks you bought with your money?”

”They looked stupid.”

”Little dude’s on a new fashion kick,” Fitz whispered to Dex. They both snickered.

”But… you love socks.” Harry was at a complete loss. This house elf was not like Dobby at all. He reminded him of the punk goth kids that would beat him up in his elementary days. 

“Not anymore. Look, I don’t have the patience nor the desire to be at your beck and call all the time. If you want someone to help you, ask Winky or one of the other morons. Believe it or not, I have my own personal concerns to deal with at the moment and I don’t have time to bring you… what was it?”

”Chicken,” Harry said in a daze.

”Yes, chicken. “ Dobby spat out the word as if it were a curse. “The other elves told me I was a free elf. Well then, leave me alone. I am going back to sleep now.”

Dobby turned to go, but Keefe interrupted. “Are those… throwing stars? Made of forks?” Harry looked at the sash around Dobby and realized that Keefe was right. There were various weapons hanging from the sash, all of which looked like they had been made from different kitchen utensils. He had a couple smaller knives, several fork throwing stars, spoons that had been sharpened to a razor sharp point, and even a spiky mallet used for tenderizing meat.

”Free elves are still not allowed to buy weapons,” Dobby groused. “I was almost arrested for even suggesting it.”

”Dobby,” Harry prayed that what he was about to ask was not true. There couldn’t be another one, there just couldn’t. “Are you by any chance… not Dobby?”

”No way,” Sophie breathed. She tried and failed to hide her growing smile. “Harry, I think I know who this is.”

Harry’s hopes thudded to the ground. Great. “Which of your friends is it this time?”

”Keefe? Who do we know that carries around throwing stars and knives and would most definitely not want to look like a little house elf?” 

“Did you say Keefe?” Dobby asked. His ears perked up a little. 

“Wait. It can’t be. Is it? Gigantor?” Dobby didn’t respond. “THIS IS LITERALLY THE BEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!!! Gigantor, is A TINY UGLY WEAK,”

”Watch it,” Dobby-who-was-actually-Sandor squeaked. Keefe absolutely dissolved into laughter. 

“He’s” wheeze, “a short house elf,” wheeze, “and his voice… aaaahhhha!!”

”Gigantor?” Harry tried to speak over Keefe’s laughter. “Is that really his name?”

”My name is Sandor. I am a highly respected goblin bodyguard…”

”Good luck guarding us with your forks and spoons!!” Keefe laughed. “Anyone who sees you will shake in terror! Make way chicken and rice! Avast ye fried fish and noodles! On guard yonder cake and pudding! Watch out…”

”Keefe, I think we get it,” Dex interrupted. 

“Who else is here? Besides this idiot,” Sandor grumbled. 

“I’m Dex, and Fitz and Sophie are here too.”

”Sophie? She’s the hair monster?” Sandor unsheathed one of his butter knives and strode over to her side. “Then I shall protect you.” Keefe’s laughter got louder. Sandor’s ears twitched in annoyance. 

Harry massaged his temples. Please please please let Sirius be normal. Please. “Guys, let’s just go. We’ll buy food when we get to Hogsmeade.”

Chapter Text

“You will be escorted at all times by five of the Council’s goblin bodyguards. You will not leave the bodyguards at any time. You must all stay together. Anyone who leaves will be imprisoned. Anyone who shows any sign of violence will be imprisoned. Anyone who…”

“Anyone who breathes, speaks, thinks, or otherwise will be imprisoned. We get it.” Draco rolled his eyes. These elves were so self-important. They were going to a high school for crying out loud. How complicated could it be?

”Yes, well.” The Council’s official rolled up a scroll and looked at Draco. “Need I remind you that our world is currently in a state of crisis. We are facing a probable war with the ogres and the gnomes are dying out because of the plague. Our food supplies are suffering dramatically, and now several species from the human world have infiltrated our cities in the bodies of several wanted criminals. So yes. You are a threat and will be treated accordingly. Try to learn what you can, but don’t get too attached. It’s very probable that the council will erase your minds whenever you get back to your regular bodies.”

Perfect. Wonderful. These elves sure know how to check items off of Draco’s bucket list. “Thank you for summing that up.”

”Draco, just shut it,” Hermione hissed from behind. 

“I wish Mr. Forkle were here.” Ron looked nervous. His eyes were wide as he looked around the school’s auditorium. Draco didn’t blame him. Every single elf here looked like a supermodel. He would have felt out of place too if his normal appearance was as dreadful as Weasley’s. 

“I wonder what kind of things you would learn at a school like this?” Cedric peered at the schedule that the Council had provided. “Mine says ‘elven history’ first.”

”That means they are planning to indoctrinate us.” Draco had expected as much. “It’s just going to be more nonsense about how elves are superior to everyone else even though they can each only do one type of magic which is usually useless.”

”You’re still just sour that you got Keefe’s stupid ability,” Tam smirked. “I can’t blame you, I would have hated it too.”

”Like playing with shadows is more impressive,” Draco muttered under his breath. 

“…actually, playing with shadows is way cooler than reading emotions,” Cedric pointed out.

”It is cool,” Hermione agreed. “Tam makes me think of Batman sometimes.”

Sometimes, no, all of the time, Hermione is determined to be an insufferable know it all. “Who the heck is Batman?”

”Ahhh! Sophie knows who Batman is too!” Biana squealed in excitement. “Is it a human thing?”

”I think Batman is a guy whose father was a bat and whose mother was a human,” Dex said. “At least, that’s what my mom told me. She collects human movies.”

”That’s not…” Hermione started,

”That would make sense,” Biana nodded. “Otherwise he would just be ‘normal man’ or ‘manless bat.’”

Thankfully, the bell rang in that moment sparing Draco from further discussion about whatever weird muggle obsession Hermione so desperately wanted to educate them on. The goblin bodyguards moved forward so Draco followed behind in order to avoid imprisonment.

~~~

Elves are the best. They are better than humans. Humans are jerks. Humans mess everything up because they are greedy. Humans eat meat instead of vegetables. Meat has feelings. Elves are rich. Elves are powerful. Elves are exceedingly full of themselves…

Draco looked down at his notebook and snorted in disgust. He looked around the classroom and saw that Ron was already fast asleep. Tam had on a pair of sunglasses (where did he get sunglasses? No one knows) but Draco was pretty sure he was asleep too. Linh was nodding off, Biana was staring vacantly into space, Cedric kept loudly slapping his face, and even Hermione’s eyelids seemed a fraction of a millimeter lower than usual. 

First year elf students kept glancing back at them and their bodyguards in fear and fascination. He felt like an exhibit in a zoo. 

“So, are you going to talk about wizards at all?” Draco raised his hand and interrupted the class. The teacher looked at him in shock. Hermione glared at him and Biana shot him a warning look. One of the bodyguards grumbled.

“Ahhh yes!” After taking a moment to recover himself, the professor continued, “Wizards are a very interesting part of human culture. They are a fantasy creation made by the mind of a human as a way to make themselves feel better about their general powerlessness. Witches, superheroes, and the like also fit into this category. Now, as I was saying…”

These teachers don’t even know what wizards are. What a waste of time. Draco was relieved when the bell finally signaled his release. Next up was… skill training. Great. Brilliant.

”I found that to be very interesting.” Cedric popped up beside Draco. 

Draco gave a startled jump. “Are you talking to me Hufflepuff?”

”Of course. Since we are the only two not in Gryffindor, I thought it would be nice to get better acquainted.”

”Think again.”

Cedric was not deterred. “Isn’t it fascinating that we get to experience a whole different world that we had no idea existed? And we can learn from such powerful beings.”

”Cedric.” Draco massaged his temples. Dealing with idiots was unfortunately a harsh and consistent reality of his daily life. “Not one of these old farts could hold a candle to me if I had my wand, let alone Dumbledore, and let's not even mention Voldemort. The only talents they have are excessive self-absorption and an affinity for shiny objects. That class was a load of bollocks and you know it.”

”Well, it certainly was… strange… but that’s just because we are on the outside. I’m sure this is perfectly normal to them.”

”I’d rather be in Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures class.”

”Maybe skill training will go better.”

Cedric’s endless optimism was grating. “Sure. I bet it will be the best time of my life.”

~~~

”Good evening. My name is Sir Tiergan and I will be helping you develop your elven powers.” 

Hermione drew in a quick breath. Mr. Forkle had mentioned Sir Tiergan. Wylie’s mentor. Wylie whose father was Prentice, the man that they were supposed to have rescued. She eyed him warily. He seemed annoyed. Stressed. Maybe even a little angry. She didn’t blame him. 

“What skills?” Draco cocked an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “Elf powers are stupid. Besides, why should we even have to learn this rubbish anyways?”

Tiergan glared at him. Draco flinched but didn’t back down. Tiergan eyed the Council’s goblin bodyguards warily. “I wish to be here just as much as you do, Mr…”

”Malfoy.”

”Malloy.” Draco opened his mouth, but he continued. “I presume I was ordered to teach you because the Council does not wish you to be completely defenseless in case something… unfortunate were to happen. However, allow me to make one thing perfectly clear. I do not trust you. I do not like you. I am helping you merely for the sake of your bodies’ original owners. Though the Council has decided to offer you sanctuary, the Neverseen are still after you. And once word gets out about your condition, they are sure to redouble their efforts to find you. Malloy, you especially are a target. As I assume you have been informed, your body’s original owner, Keefe, is somehow essential to their plan. Miss…” he looked in her direction. His eyes hardened. So, he especially didn’t like her. Good to know.

Hermione swallowed nervously. “Miss Granger, sir.”

”Miss Granger is also their primary target. And unlike you, Mr. Malloy, Granger’s very life may be at stake. So I hope, for your sakes, that you will pay attention in my class. Chances are if the body you are occupying dies, you will die as well.”

Draco frowned and looked at the ground. Cedric had turned an almost pale color. Hermione, for some reason, wanted to laugh. Of course she would be transported from one horrible dangerous situation to another. And this one was arguably worse, since she didn’t yet have the means to defend herself. She wondered how Harry was doing. Hopefully he made it through the first task okay. 

Hermione clenched her fist. Despite Sir Tiergan’s obvious disdain for them, she was determined to do the best that she could. She’d always been great with school. This would be no different. She would make sure that they survived. And maybe… she glanced at Tiergan. Maybe they would even be able to help.

~~~

“I hate Polyjuice potion.”

”So you’ve mentioned, like, dozens of times.” Fitz rolled his eyes. “Honestly, the only bad part is how weird it feels to be someone different, but, hello, I was already someone different anyway, so it's not a big deal. 

“No, no. You don’t understand. Polyjuice potion is supposed to taste horrible. It’s supposed to hurt. This tastes almost like apple cider and I didn’t even feel the transformation.”

”Well, I did alter the recipe a bit.” Dex ruffled his hair self-consciously. “I didn’t want it to taste too weird… and Keefe took out the leeches because he said they would make it hurt and just, ew.”

Harry sighed. “Y’all can’t just break every rule in the wizarding world because you’re elves you know. Professor Snape would have a heart attack.”

”Don’t worry Harry, I more than make up for it,” Sophie groused. “I can’t even do the simplest spells.”

”Is it just me, or is it weird that we look like middle-aged adults?” Fitz pulled at his greying hair. “Where did you find these hairs anyway?”

”We can’t look like students,” Harry explained. “And I got the hairs from my Aunt and Uncle and neighbors. You know. In case of emergencies.”

”You're telling me that I look like your aunt?” Sophie grimaced. “I’m really starting to hate the whole switching bodies thing.”

Harry hated it too. Every time he glanced at Fitz (who looked like Vernon Dursley) and Sophie (Aunt Petunia) he had a miniature heart attack. Still, he was glad he’d thought to bring them. At this point there were just too many people to fit under the invisibility cloak. If Draco, no Keefe didn’t have to tag along… well, there was nothing he could do about it now.

They fumbled through the secret passage without much of a problem. Sandor/Dobby and Keefe argued quite a lot, and at one point a fork-throwing-star whizzed past his ear. 

When they reached the secret passage into Honeydukes, Harry held up a finger to quiet them. He carefully opened the trapdoor. It was late enough that not many people were around. One by one they forced their (in Fitz’s case) rather large bodies out of the trapdoor. No one made a sound. He straightened his coat and fixed his glasses. He thought he may have been one of Uncle Vernon’s random business partners. Thankfully he hadn’t grabbed any animal hairs by mistake. He shuddered remembering what had happened to Hermione during their second year. 

No one dared to speak until they had made it safely outside and were walking down the road.

“Harry?”

Drat. It was Keefe. Harry, for some reason, would get really irritated at Keefe. He wasn’t sure why. Ron would have worshiped him. “What is it?”

“Why didn’t we just use invisibility potion? Then we wouldn’t have had to sneak around as much, and Fitz wouldn’t look so hideous.”

Ah. That was it. This is why Keefe annoyed him.

“I vote not looking hideous,” Fitz offered.

“You know, on second thought let’s just keep it the way it is,” Keefe smirked at Fitz. Fitz glared back.

“Can you make invisibility potion?” Keefe opened his mouth to respond. “Nevermind, of course you can.” Harry sighed. He had always used the cloak for being invisible, so he hadn’t even thought about it. “Why didn’t you bring this up sooner?” 

Keefe shrugged. “I thought the disguises would be fun.”

Of course he did. Harry sped up his pace so that he was no longer beside Keefe. He couldn’t wait to see his godfather.

~~~

“It’s absolutely fascinating, isn’t it?” Hermione was holding an excessively massive book called Flora and Fauna of the Gnomes. “Gnomes have grown entirely new species of plants with their magic, plants that we don’t even have at Hogwarts. This one here,” she flipped halfway through the book, “is a root that looks like a moldy purple carrot but it tastes like a cheeseburger.”

“Yes, because we don’t already have actual cheeseburgers,” Ron grunted. “Bloody useless if you ask me.”

“Nobody asked you Ron.” Hermione looked up from her book in annoyance. “I’m not just thinking of the culinary applications you know. Elven healing is above anything I’ve seen, even in the wizarding world. And surely you’ve thought about the implications for Potions. And their alchemy! If we could fuse our knowledge of elves, wizards, or even Muggles, then we could…”

“Granger, for the love of all things just shut up.” Granger had been incessantly talking ever since they got back from ‘elf school.’ Oh isn’t this interesting or did you know I have at least 5 abilities and isn’t Mr. Forklift very mysterious? Kind of like the Dumbledore of the elf world and it just went on and on and on. Draco massaged his temples. He was lying sideways across his chair, his legs sticking off the armrest. He had a book titled Insights for Empaths lying across his face. Mr. Tiergan had essentially confirmed that his ability was, in fact, utterly useless and told him to read about it for ‘homework.’ It seemed like no matter what happened he would never be able to get out of doing homework. He bet if You-Know-Who himself waltzed through the overly pollinated doorway Mr. Forkle would tell him to quit worrying about it and focus on his studies. 

Granger gaped at him, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. Draco smirked at her without lifting the magazine from his face.

”Lay off Malfoy.” The Weasel sneered at him. Draco rolled his eyes and refused to respond. His taunts were almost as stupid as he was. The assortment of wires lying around him for ‘Technopath practice’ could have very well been tree branches for all the good Weasley would be able to do with them. 

“Mr. Tiergan was rather… intense, wasn’t he?” Cedric tried to break the tense silence that had descended. “The way he entered into our minds… it kind of reminded me of Legillimancy.”

”Of course!” Hermione’s eyes gleamed excitedly. “If Mr. Forkle’s theory on how wizards came to exist is really true, then it would make sense that we have spells that can effectively do the same job as a Telepath.”

”Except Legillimancy hurts way more,” Draco mumbled. 

“What?” Granger looked up at him in surprise. Shoot. He didn’t mean to say that out loud. All of the Black family tree trained in Occulmeny and Legillimancy. Images of his father entering his mind, dredging up his most private thoughts, forcing him to protect himself… Draco suppressed a shudder.

”Well obviously it would,” he sneered, trying to cover up his nervousness. “Since wizards are superior and elves are just a bunch of lazy snots who barely have to work to get their magic to do what they want.”

Granger looked at him strangely. Stupid Mudblood. She always pries her nose where it doesn’t belong. He met her gaze challengingly. She looked away biting her lip. 

Draco allowed his gaze to settle on the two twins. Tam and Linh. They had barely contributed to the conversation at all. Tam was asleep, and Linh just listened to them with wide eyes. She reminded him of Looney Lovegood. 

He wondered were they would have been sorted if they were in Hogwarts. Since Linh was Looney, she could be in Ravenclaw. And her idiot brother… Draco hated to admit it, but he probably would have been in Slytherin. He was certainly unpleasant enough. Not very cultured though. Definitely not worthy of much besides being a minion. Another Crabbe or Goyle but with half an extra brain cell. The girl, Biana: now she has a temper. She was like a female Weasley, reminded him of the little Weaslette actually. Gryffindor then. 

Brunette Weaslette barged through the door, interrupting his reverie. “We have to go. Apparently Silveny is freaking out because she can’t feel Sophie’s mind anymore. The Council has already sanctioned the visit ‘for the preservation of the alicorn species.’”

She left obviously expecting them to follow her. Draco raised an eyebrow. No explanation about what a Silveny or an alicorn was then. Weasley stared at the door stupidly. Linh got up to go and nudged Tam. Granger was already out the door with Cedric close on her heels. Draco put the book back over his eyes. He wouldn’t go until someone forcibly dragged him away. Wasn’t his problem.

~~~

Sirius was very excited. “Harry, do you realize what this means? An entire civilization, a magical civilization is here…”

”Well, we don’t actually know if this is the same universe or not,” Sophie cut in from behind her head of hair.

”Yes, yes,” Sirius waved away her concern, “just think about it though. These beings, these elves as they call themselves could be the key to defeating Voldemort once and for all.”

”I thought you said Voldemort was dead?” Ron had a worried look on his face. “That you killed him as a baby?”

”Yes, well, he’s made a few attempts at coming back to life over the years. And my scar has been hurting a lot more recently.”

”And your scar hurting is… bad…” Ron tested.

”We think so,” Sirius nodded. “Harry seems to be getting visions of Voldemort somehow. We’ve been keeping an eye on it. How is the tournament going by the way?”

Harry grimaced. “Cedric, er, Fitz was almost roasted alive by the dragon.”

”But thanks to my brilliant plan he was perfectly fine,” Keefe smirked at Harry.

”If you call releasing all the dragons on the school ‘perfectly fine,’” Harry groused. 

“I appreciate all of you sticking by Harry, although it is weird to see you hanging out with ‘Cedric,’ not to mention ‘Malfoy.’” Sirius eyed the two curiously. The Polyjuice potion had worn off a few minutes after entering the small cave. Dex had made just enough for the return journey, so they were saving it for the trip back to Hogsmeade. 

“If we ever do figure out this whole ‘switch bodies’ thing, I left a few surprises for Mr. Draco,” Keefe grinned. 

Dex looked at Keefe in horror. “What did you do?”

”Oh, you know. A few scribbled messages here, some hexes and curses there, not to mention whatever Fred and George do to him when they figure the whole thing out. He sounds like he was a right piece of work.”

Harry thought that maybe he was starting to warm up to Keefe. He turned back to Sirius. “So, do you think you can help us?”

Sirius shook his head sadly. “I’ve never heard of this type of elf before. Although,” his eyes sparkled dangerously, “it definitely sounds like something worth investigating. Keefe?”

”Yup?”

”Your father Lucius Malfoy has a lot of money and one of the biggest libraries on the continent. See if you can owl home for some books on random elf-related things from your culture. I wouldn’t mention elves specifically. It shouldn’t be too dangerous a question to ask since it has nothing to do with Voldemort or Harry. In the meantime,” he turned to Dex, Sophie, and Fitz. “See if you can find anything in the restricted section of the library. I am going to ask around. Sophie, I would also ask Hagrid the gamekeeper at Hogwarts about some of the animals in the elven world to see if he recognizes any names. Take Harry with you so he doesn’t guess something is wrong with you.” Sirius looked at Harry. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. But keep me posted.”

Sirius grabbed Harry and gave him a big hug. “I miss you, you know. Try not to get into trouble. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me, especially since you don’t have your friends to lean on anymore. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be alright.”

Harry nodded and leaned into the hug. He glanced out to where Sandor/Dobby was waiting outside the cave. “We should probably get going then.”

”Good luck in the tournament Harry. Stay safe.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Hermione grabbed onto the crystal, Cedric and the others close behind her. She grimaced as the light pulled them away and tried not to think about how her particles were rearranging themselves and could potentially scatter her into nothingness. She tried to suppress a grin as Ron face-planted on the ground. Draco, of course, appeared without issue. He laughed aloud at Ron and made some comment about ‘stupid commoner’ and ‘all the poise of a drunk flobberworm.’ Light leaping was strange, but she supposed it would make her feel less sick than apparating. As unpleasant as losing your molecules to the void would be, at least she wasn’t in danger of splinching her limbs off in a bloody mess. 

There were two council members present as well as five goblin bodyguards. She eyed Mr. Forkle, Tam, Linh, and Biana who were staring at the party with obvious distrust. The council members glared back in return. From what she had gathered, the Black Swan and the council were currently in a tenuous alliance to figure out the whole ‘apparently wizards exist’ problem. Neither the council nor the Black Swan were happy with this arrangement. At least they both seemed to realize that fighting amongst themselves at this time would be futile. 

Mr. Forkle had informed the council that Tam, Linh, and Biana were also wizards-turned-elves. Mr. Forkle had claimed that this enabled them to attend the Foxfire lessons, but it was obvious that he wanted the three of them to watch herself, Cedric, Ron, and Draco. All three of them were terrible at pretending they had no idea what they were doing. They were elves through and through. In Linh’s defense, she tried to look shocked anytime they did anything like light leaping (currently her mouth was gaping like a fish) but it was more comedic than realistic at this point. Biana and Tam didn’t even try. Hermione guessed that the council knew they were not all wizards, but just didn’t say anything to ‘keep the peace.’ 

She had asked Mr. Forkle last night about the situation. He had mumbled something regarding ‘forgotten secrets’ and refused to say more on the subject. He had known about the wizards though. That unsettled her.

She had mixed feelings about Mr. Forkle. He was doing his best to make them feel less panicked (not that Ron had calmed down much at all), but it was more than obvious that him and every other elf did not want them here. 

Biana had practically ignored them, shutting herself up in her room after class. She refused to pay any attention to Cedric, despite his constant attempts to speak to her, and she had only talked to Hermione in clipped sentences. Right now her arms were crossed and she was resolutely looking at the scenery to avoid eye contact with the council and her “fellow wizards.”

Hermione sighed. They all had better things to do than comfort glittery horses. She had tried to read as much as she could the night before about the current elvish affairs, but she still knew too little. All she knew was that things were not as sparkly as elven history class would have them believe. War was looming with the ogres, not to mention the Black Swan’s obsession with the mysterious group called the Neverseen.

Another world. Again. When she found out she was a wizard she was more excited than she had ever been about anything. She had spent the entire summer studying everything she could about the wizarding world, determined to catch up to the children who had lived their entire lives in wizard culture. But she still fell short. She thought back to third year. Mudblood. That’s how Draco saw her. That’s how many of the pureblood wizards saw her. And for all her smarts she hadn’t been able to keep her friends safe. Every year they encountered near death situations. Now Harry was by himself and nothing she had studied had prepared her for having her soul forcibly removed from her body and put in a different one.

She wondered if Harry was alright. If their souls really had switched places, maybe this Sophie person was going to her classes and dealing with her hair and watching Harry risk his life every day with the stupid Triwizard tournament. 

Hermione gasped. Her classes!! Her grades!! She turned to Biana and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

“Biana?”

She huffed and looked away from the green flowering fields. “What is it.”

“Sophie, was she… good at her classes?”

Biana’s eyebrows rose. “That’s your question? Not, ‘how do I stop the Neverseen,‘ not ‘what am I supposed to do with these alicorns,’ not ‘how in the heck am I supposed to get Sophie back from whatever dangerous place she ended up in?!’”

Hermione winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Sophie was always rubbish at her classes.” Tam placed himself between the two of them and crossed his arms. “At least, that’s what she told me.” He grinned mischievously. “She also completely burned down my old school at Exillium. It was awesome.“

Biana rolled her eyes and walked away. Hermione took a deep breath. Then another. Biana was right. She shouldn’t be worrying about this right now. Maybe Sophie wasn’t even in her body, maybe her body was currently paralyzed in the healing center like what happened when she had been attacked by the basilisk. 

Still. She hoped Dumbledore would be understanding.

She was interrupted from her musings by a loud cry from Draco causing her to jump in surprise.

“ARGHH!!” He clutched his head and fell on the ground. Mr. Forkle started and quickly went to his side.

“Mr. Malfoy, are you alright?” The goblin bodyguards gripped their weapons tighter and the two council members looked around nervously as if anticipating an attack.

Draco glared up at Mr. Forkle in disgust, which quickly turned to pain then panic. He jolted as if he had been shot in the head and groaned again. Hermione looked around with the others, but there was no sign of any attackers. She looked at him in concern.

Draco shoved Mr. Forkle away. He grimaced again and again as if his invisible attacker was stabbing him over and over. With great effort he schooled his features and his face became a blank slate. He was pale and shaking. He closed his eyes and breathed out until his breathing returned to normal. 

He opened his eyes. Everyone was staring now. Ron rolled his eyes as if he suspected Malfoy had put on the performance just to get attention. 

“Mr. Malfoy?” Mr. Forkle approached him hesitantly. “What happened?”

Draco looked at Mr. Forkle as if he were worth less than the dirt under his boots. He seemed to consider his response before saying, “Something tried to get into my brain.”

What?

“A telepath?” Mr. Forkle was alarmed. “Maybe one of the Neverseen perhaps?” He looked back at Draco. “And what do you mean ‘something tried?’ You were able to fend it off?”

“It wasn’t human, I don’t think.” Draco ignored the last question. Obviously he had managed to fend it off, he wasn’t rolling on the ground anymore. “The attack was too powerful. Nothing has broken past my defenses this fast before. Though it could also be this bloody body-switching situation, it makes Occlumency a good deal harder than it needs to be.” Draco tugged his fingers through his hair, straightening out the unruly blond locks. “It tore through my thoughts like a knife, louder than anything I’ve ever heard.”

“What did it say?” One of the council members questioned him impatiently. “What did it want?”

Draco’s lips thinned into a fine line. “It said, NOT KEEFE NOT KEEFE NOT KEEFE over and over again. It was angry.”

“That sounds like it could be Silveny,” Biana supplied. “Sophie always said she was obsessed with Keefe.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Mr. Forkle paced back and forth. “Silveny has only ever communicated with Sophie before.”

“Lucky me,” Draco replied in a dry tone. 

Silveny was the alicorn? Hermione didn’t know anything about alicorns, but she knew that unicorns at least couldn’t talk.

NOT SOPHIE NOT SOPHIE NOT SOPHIE

Hermione sank to the ground as the chants began to resound through her skull. 

“Looks like Granger was chosen by the furry menace too,” Draco commented. He winced a bit in sympathy. 

NOT SOPHIE NOT SOPHIE NOT SOPHIE WHERE SOPHIE WHERE WHERE WHERE

“Malfoy, how do I make this stop?” Hermione gripped her head. This felt painful. Personal. Like the alicorn was trying to rip her soul out of Sophie’s body. “Please.” Hermione whimpered. So this is what it felt like to have something in your mind, privy to every private thought. Now the alicorn was ripping through her memories, examining each with a vindictive fury and constantly chanting NOT SOPHIE NOT SOPHIE NOT SOPHIE.

“You’re not supposed to be able to stop it,” Mr. Forkle answered her. “Silveny is able to get past Sophie’s defenses, something most elves could never hope to do.”

“But the blond twerp did it!” Ron shouted and pointed at Malfoy. He was looking at Hermione in concern. “He got rid of the creature in less than a minute!”

Everyone looked at Draco who shifted uncomfortably. “Like I said, I used Occlumency. I’ve been training since I was little. It enables me to block out someone who is trying to enter my thoughts almost flawlessly. My mother…” he paused as Hermione let out another groan. “My mother had hoped I would be able to fend off even the Dark Lord himself, if it came down to it.” 

“The Dark Lord?” Cedric looked confused. “He’s back?”

“He’s trying,” Ron grumbled.

“The Dark Mark never disappeared from father’s arm,” Draco agreed. “Father always expected him to return some day. He still has his death eater mask in the dungeons.”

“You have dungeons?” Tam asked.

“Every self respecting wizarding family has a dungeon,” Malfoy spat out. 

Hermione could barely focus on the conversation from the pain. Please. She tried speaking her thoughts to the alicorn. Silveny didn’t stop her mental barrage. Please stop. Help, I want to help. The alicorn paused in her attack. Encouraged, Hermione tried again. I want to help find Sophie and Keefe. I want to help.

SOPHIE FIND

Yes! Hermione took deep breaths, her head throbbing incessantly. Sophie find.

Silveny left her head. Hermione collapsed on the ground. Ron and Mr. Forkle rushed over to her to help her up. 

A few minutes later, Hermione was able to hear a flutter of wings. She looked up and saw the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. Silveny sparkled as the sunlight reflected off her wings and horn. She landed on the ground and stared straight at Hermione. I know. Hermione thought in her head. I’m sorry. The alicorn shook her head as if she understood.

“This is the glittery menace that was able to get past my shields?” Draco stared at the alicorn with incredulity. “It’s just a glorified pointy horse pigeon.”

Silveny snorted and Hermione could have sworn she was glaring at Draco.

“Careful Malfoy,” Ron smirked. “You wouldn’t want a repeat of the Hippogriff incident.”

“You shut it unless you want a repeat of the slug vomiting incident,” Draco returned coolly. 

“Remember that you are here to reassure the alicorn Silveny.” One of the council members walked forward, interrupting Ron’s indignant noises. He unfurled a large scroll and cleared his throat. “Ahem. The alicorns are an endangered species. As of now, we are only aware of one female alicorn, Silveny, and one male alicorn, Greyfell. As the planet’s protectors and rulers it is the great responsibility of the elves to care for all creatures…”

Hermione tuned out the rest of the speech. Tam fell asleep in the grass. Ron and Cedric were staring ahead blankly. Only Draco was still alert, but he wasn’t listening to the speech. Silveny had apparently decided that he was the biggest threat. 

She advanced on Draco but he refused to move. He stared straight at the sparkly flying horse and she stared right back. Silveny’s face was inches away from his. He never looked down, though Hermione could have sworn that she saw him flinch a little. 

“What do you want you overfed flying menace?” Hermione barely heard Malfoy hiss under his breath. Silveny snorted at him, tousling his hair with her breath. She turned to Hermione. 

NOT KEEFE WHERE KEEFE

“She wants to find her friends, Keefe and Sophie,” Hermione explained. 

“Kinda guessed that,” Draco retorted. “Ask her to leave us alone. We are doing the best we can.”

”Why don’t you ask her?” 

“I’d rather not go through that again, thanks,” Draco responded dryly. 

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Look, Malfoy. This whole situation pleases me just as much as it pleases you…”

“Says the person who was just engrossed with a book on purple elf carrots,” Draco interrupted.

Hermione glared at him and continued, “it pleases me as much as it pleases you, so could you find it in yourself to be a little more helpful? At least be nice to the alicorn. Apologize. Something.”

“I never apologize,” Draco snarled. “Especially not for something that isn’t even my fault.” He looked at Silveny, one eyebrow raised. “You hear that you big furry buffoon? Leave me alone.”

Hermione released a long-suffering sigh. She turned to Silveny and reached for that strange connection that linked her mind with the alicorn’s.

Silveny

She glanced at Hermione, still mostly focused on Draco.

Silveny. Teach him a lesson.

She wasn’t sure if the alicorn would understand, so she tried to play an image of Silveny biting Draco, pushing him on the grass, and of Silveny giving him a good kick to the ribs. Hermione could have sworn that she saw the alicorn’s eyes sparkle just a little bit. Hermione bit back a grin. Was she being petty? Yes. Did she care? No.

Get him Silveny. Teach him a lesson.

~~~~

Draco was having a bad day. Not that he expected any better from elf land. He had yet to be impressed. Yes, these elves were literally living on piles of rubies, but here that wasn’t even cool. Every single elf had the means to buy whatever they wanted. It was ridiculous. How was one supposed to flaunt their wealth if there were no peasants to show off to?

And there were more magical creatures. He thought he’d seen the end of magical creatures when he’d put that hairy oaf Hagrid in his place. But no. Of course there had to be sparkly horses that could use Legillimency. 

Said sparkly horse was staring at him like he had just stolen her last carrot. Stupid horse. He risked letting up his defenses to send the thought at her. Her ear twitched and she turned to Granger instead. He smiled, satisfied. 

Mr. Forlornkle and the council members were currently embroiled in a heated debate over who-cares-what. Tam and Linh were talking to Biana, and Cedric was discussing quidditch with Ron. No one was paying to them or the alicorn anymore. What did they even expect him to do? “Apologize to the brute. What a confunded notion. I’ll apologize when everyone else apologizes to me for…”

Draco felt a tug on the back of his shirt and bit back a scream as the ground disappeared from beneath his feet. The loud rushing of wingbeats filled his ears and his stomach plummeted. 

“PUT ME DOWN!! LET ME DOWN NOW!!” His hands grabbed at Silveny’s mouth and he tried to tug his shirt free. Then he looked down at the ground and thought better of it. “LET ME…” a bug flew into his mouth and he broke off, choking and spluttering. He stopped Occluding and screamed in his head.

DOWN. NOW.

Silveny ignored him. Of course she did.

PUT ME DOWN. OR I’LL…

There was nothing he could do. He knew it. She knew it. 

SILVENY TEACH.

What? Teach?

TEACH MEAN KEEFE. TEACH MEAN KEEFE BE NICE.

 What. The. Heck. Draco took a deep breath. Then another. Silveny flew so high he almost couldn’t breathe. She plummeted to the ground and jerked up sharply. She flew loop-de-loops. One time she dropped him and then barely caught him by his shirt.

TEACH MEAN KEEFE BE NICE.

Draco’s bad days are always, always capable of becoming significantly worse. He crossed his arms, shut his eyes, and did everything in his power not to scream. If he was going to be tortured, he would go through it with dignity. He wouldn’t give the alicorn the satisfaction. 

~~~meanwhile, on the ground~~~

Hermione had started laughing. She was practically rolling on the ground in glee. Tam lifted an eyebrow in question. Wordlessly, she pointed to the sky.

There was Draco-who-looked-like-Keefe. He was dangling from the mouth of the alicorn like a rag doll. His crossed arms made the whole thing look completely unnatural.

Tam’s lips quirked into a smile. As the others stopped talking and joined him and Hermione to see the show, the smile grew wider. When Silveny dropped him, his smile turned into a laugh and soon everyone, even the council members and Mr. Forkle were laughing aloud.

Tam had been having a very bad day.

Bad days could always get better.

~~~

“So, the twins told me about this room.”

“Keefe, every time the twins tell you something it’s a complete disaster.” Sophie moved her unruly hair out of her eyes and looked at him. Keefe’s breath caught. He knew that she was in a different body, but her every movement was the same as before. She tugged at her eyelashes nervously. Keefe held back a smirk. Yup. Same old Sophie. And her eyes were still brown. A deep brown, but without those gold flecks that he loved so much.

He had been lucky enough to finally get her alone. Well, mostly alone. Sandor the unhappy elf was standing in the corner, his perpetual glare brandished on his face and forks at the ready. Harry and Fitz had gone off to look at their golden eggs, something about the next task for the tournament or whatever. Harry hadn’t wanted to think about it yet, but Fitz had been nearly in tears about needing to prepare, or what if it was another dragon, or worse, and I don’t want to die and yada yada. Dex had gone to bed because he was exhausted. 

Point of the matter: without the third wheel and the has-already-been-kiss-rejected fourth wheel around, he would finally be able to talk to Sophie. 

“You know it’s also waaay past curfew.” Sophie followed him as he went around the maze of corridors that was Hogwarts castle. How the little first years were ever able to find their classes was beyond him.

“If you cared about following the rules at all, I might for a second believe you cared about curfew.” All the same, Keefe listened for the tell-tale scratch of claws against stone that signaled Filch’s cat was nearby. He rounded the last hallway. “This is it.”

“Keefe, this is a wall.” He ignored her and walked back and forth in front of the wall. I need a room with a swing. It needs to feel like I’m at the ocean, like my dad’s cabin by the beach. Also, some flowers couldn’t hurt, tie them up with a golden ribbon.

Keefe had already practiced using this room before (and he had already used it as a spot to ditch his classes) but he still let out a sigh of relief when the door appeared. Sophie gasped and Keefe struggled to suppress a grin. 

“Welcome Foster, to my humble abode.” With a flourish, he opened the door and swept his hand forward indicating that she should enter. He closed the door behind her and let out a sigh of contentment as the salty tang of the sea drifted through his senses. 

“Keefe, this is…” 

He spied the flowers he had requested near the entrance and hastily picked them up. “For you.”

Sophie looked at him, then looked at the flowers and immediately burst out laughing.

Keefe grinned sheepishly, putting the flowers into her hands. “I know, it’s a bit much.”

”No.” Sophie smelled the flowers, her cheeks dusting with red. “It’s wonderful. Thank you.” 

Keefe’s heart sped up. He wondered if Sophie could hear. He wished for the first time that he had his Empath powers back so that he could tell what she was really feeling. He knew that she liked Fitz. Her crush had been clear as day since the first time he had met her. But a part of him still hoped…

”So, where are we? Why the beach?”

Keefe shook off his thoughts and adopted an easy smile. “It’s my dad’s secret beach house. He hid it from me and my mom to ‘get away,’ as if the giant crystal palace wasn’t big enough already.” Sophie gave him a sad look and he cleared his throat. “Anyway, I like to come here too. Something about the ocean feels peaceful. And this room does a pretty good job of reproducing the feeling, even though it obviously isn’t a real beach.”

“It’s beautiful.”

”Yeah.”

He led her to the bench and they sat in silence for a while, listening to the sound of waves. They talked about random things of no consequence. They talked about likes, dislikes, classes at Foxfire and at Hogwarts, and about their new friends. Sophie laughed several times when he got too excited about wizard food, magic, and plans he had made with Fred and George. 

It was so easy to talk to her. It was so easy to forget that his mom was a murderer and that he had no idea if he would ever make it home. Not that he really wanted to go back home. 

“Hey Sophie.”

“Yeah?” She looked at peace for the first time since this misadventure started. Keefe looked away before she could catch him staring.

“Is it crazy…” he shouldn’t bring this up. She was staring at him, head cocked to the side. He remembered the window sleepovers and how she would stay with him every time he needed to talk. He took a deep breath. She would understand. “Is it crazy that I don’t really want to go back? Home I mean.”

He clenched his fists in the robes of his Hogwarts uniform. Here he didn’t have to worry about putting his friends in danger. Here he could do more than just read stupid Empath books. Here he could hang out with his friends without worrying about getting arrested by the Council or blown up by the Neverseen. And he could do magic! Who would want to leave?

“No. It’s not crazy.” Sophie looked at him. She had a way of making him feel like she saw right to his very soul. “When I left my human family I was sad, but a part of me was relieved for a fresh start. I didn’t really have any human friends…”

“Idiots,” Keefe interrupted. 

Sophie smiled at him and continued, “I never had any human friends and I felt out of place among my family. Going to the Lost Cities, meeting all of you guys… that was the best thing that ever happened to me. But Keefe,” she turned to him and grabbed his hands. Keefe’s breath caught. Sometimes he was thankful that Sophie was the most oblivious person on the planet. If she knew how easily she affected him he would die of embarrassment. “Keefe, I’m so glad that you are in the Lost Cities. I don’t think I would have made it this far without you. I would be really sad if you never came back.”

Keefe couldn’t help it. He grabbed Sophie and hugged her tight. She jumped a little in surprise, then hugged him back. When they let go, Keefe rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Sorry about that. I don’t mean to get all emotional on you every time we chat Foster.”

Sophie grinned at him and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Like I said. I don’t know what I would do without my famous Lord Hunkyhair.”

Keefe grinned at her and took a deep breath. Then another. It was time. Time to tell her the reason he had asked her here. There was still a very big possibility she would say no. But maybe, just maybe…

“Um, Sophie?”

“Yeah?”

“Doyouwannagototheyuleballwithme.”

“What?”

This was embarrassing. He tried again, “Do you want to go to the Yule Ball with me?”

Sophie cocked her head to the side. “What’s the Yule Ball?”

Ummmmmmm. “It’s like, a dance? I think. I’m a really good dancer, so no sweat there.” Lies. He’s never danced before. But he would become the world's greatest dancer by next week if she agreed. “It’s happening in like a month, but if you don’t want to go that’s totally ok, it’s just…”

“A month? You don’t think we’re going to figure everything out by then?”

“Well, you never know…” she wasn’t excited about the idea. “Hey, you don’t have to…”

“I’d love to go with you, if you don’t mind me stepping on your feet the whole time.” Sophie grinned at him. Her face looked slightly pink and she twirled her hair absentmindedly about her finger.

She. What?

“You want to go with me? Really?”

“Well, yeah. It sounds fun. I’ve never been to a wizard ball before.”

Keefe’s heart was about to explode out of his chest. “Okay! That’s… I mean… that’s fantastic!! It’s a date Foster!” Crap. Why did he say that. Why why why why…

“Okay.”

What??

“Okay?”

“Okay, it’s a date,” Sophie clarified. She winked at him, gathered up her stuff, and left the room.

Keefe sat there dumbfounded for a good 30 minutes. 

Sophie Foster.

Just agreed.

To go on a date. 

With him. 

Best. Day. Ever.

He was so in love with this girl.

And maybe, just maybe… maybe she liked him too.