Author Note**-This is a story that probably belongs in the crossover section, but the game that it references is not there atm, so i'll post it here. This originally branched off of another story of mine on fanfiction, Hogwats' Muggle. Eventually I changed pretty much everything and it became it's own entity. Check out the original Hogwarts' Muggle story if you have a few spare minutes.
When Magical Worlds Collide
or
Eternally Crossing Potter
"You made that happen!"
Once again Severus pulled himself out of his dreams, sat up with a groan and buried his face in his hands. 'Why does my own brain conspire against me every night?' he asked himself as he threw off the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. 'At least in this dream I'm not hanging upside down and I get to keep my pants on' he thought. Not surprisingly, that thought didn't make him feel better.
He fumbled for the bedside lamp. In the unfamiliar surroundings it took a minute to find. 'Stupid Muggle contraption.' he thought as his irritation grew. He gave up with a snarl and grabbed his wand off the bedside table. "Lumos" he hissed and the wand tip lit, causing shadows to dance on the walls.
'Do not start thinking about Lily.' he ordered himself as he rose. He hesitated at the bedroom door then turned right, and made his way down the equally unfamiliar hallway. 'Wrong way' he chided himself when he came to the end of the hall. As he changed direction something caught his attention and his plans to go to the kitchen for a glass of water vanished.
One of the doors leading off the hall was open slightly and he could see a soft bluish light shining in the room beyond. "Nox" he muttered and the light at the tip of his wand went out. As he edged closer he began to hear a strange rapid clicking sound. His pulse quickened and he could feel his heart bumping against his ribs as he reached out, laid his hand flat against the door and gave it a gentle push to nudge it open.
He wasn't sure what he was going to find when the door opened, so when it swung inward to reveal a woman sitting at a desk in front of an odd glowing square, he breathed a sigh of relief. 'What did you expect to find, you git?' he rebuked himself silently as he watched her. 'Its her house, you aren't likely to open a door and find the Dark Lord.'
The woman sitting at the desk was Brynn Addison, a Muggle friend of Dumbledore's. Severus was currently staying with her because Dumbledore was convinced that he should be kept out of sight this summer.
It was believed, by former Death Eaters, that Severus was mounting a search for the Dark Lord to help him rise to power again. It was also believed, by the remaining members of The Order of the Phoenix, that he was acting as a spy and 'helping' Death Eaters search for the Dark Lord.
In actuality Dumbledore was heading the search for the Dark Lord while he, Severus, was stuck here with this Muggle who, as it was turning out, wasn't so bad... for a Muggle.
He felt his heart rate slow as he stood and looked over her shoulder. The odd clicking sounds that he had heard in the hall were coming from some sort of device on the desk. He was fairly certain he had never seen anything like it before, though he couldn't really see clearly in the bluish half light. It seemed to be an odd kind of flat rectangular panel. He crept closer for a better look.
Brynn's fingers were moving rapidly over the panel, and, after watching for a few moments, he realized that as she touched certain parts, words were appearing on the glowing square in front of her. The words flashed in front of his eyes, and he couldn't help but read them. 'I know, I know. I haven't been on in ages, I got a bit busy.'
Brynn was still unaware that he was behind her so he crept a little closer and continued to peer over her shoulder as more words appeared, but this time Brynn's fingers had been still. 'Well it is good to see you back again.' he read. More brief clicking from Brynn's hands. 'Thanks. I'll see you around.'
Severus waited, but no more words appeared. He was so intent to read more that he didn't notice Brynn's hand drift over to another device on the desk, this one was small, almost oval shaped and about the size of her hand.
There was another clicking sound, a different one this time, and suddenly the glowing square changed right in front of his eyes. Before there had only been a black background with white words dancing across it, now he was looking at a kind of cartoon picture of many people sitting in a room with a fire. He inched even closer as something in the picture caught his eye. 'Is that fire...moving? Muggle pictures aren't supposed to move.'
Puzzled he continued to look on as Brynn reached again for the small oval device and another single click was heard. Immediately one of the cartoon people in the picture stood up and started to walk away from the seated crowd. The new movement surprised him and he must have drawn in an audible breath, because Brynn jolted in her seat and turned to face him with a little squeal of surprise.
"What are you doing lurking over my shoulder at three in the morning?" she asked while she giggled at the stricken look on his pale face.
"Couldn't sleep." he replied after his heart was back down in his chest and not in his throat.
"That happens a lot with you I've noticed." Brynn said with a frown which deepened when she asked, "Want to talk about anything?" and he replied shortly, "No."
She turned with a shrug and continued to click away on her various tools. "What is that?" he finally asked.
With a laugh she replied, "Severus, that question from you could mean just about anything. Where do you want me to start?" Because she already knew what he was going to say, she waved her hand to stay his answer, and spent the next half hour trying to explain computers, keyboards, the internet, and internet chatting to a wizard. He shot questions at her so fast she felt like she was standing in front of a firing squad.
"So..." he ventured after he was fairly sure he had the basics of this Muggle pass time. Many more questions swirled in his head, he chose the one that had floated to the surface more than once. "You can talk to anyone in the world this way? With... these?" He indicated the monitor and keyboard.
Brynn suppressed a snicker, decided not to mention the inner workings of computers, and replied, "As long as they happen to have a computer and internet access and are sitting in front of their screen, yes."
"So not all Muggles have these?"
"Not all, but a lot."
"And this?" he pointed to the picture that was once again on the screen. More of the little cartoon people were moving around now. Every now and then there was a greenish white flash around one or another. Several little people disappeared in a beam of light as he watched. "What is this?"
"Its a game that I like to play." She made her character sit and stand several times. "Thats me. I control that character."
A smile quirked on his lips as he leaned a bit closer to the screen to get a better look. The word Thalia floated above Brynn's little person. "You have pointed ears... and horns."
She laughed and replied, "Thats because I'm a Draegoni." Then she spent another half hour trying to explain online role playing games to a wizard who had just learned about computers, keyboards, the internet, and internet chatting, and once again she felt like she was in front of that firing squad.
Severus picked up on the basics of the game surprisingly quickly and was soon directing Brynn as she played her character. "Fight that." he said as she passed by a troll.
She snorted out a laugh and passed right by it. "No way, that troll would crush me."
"Thats a troll?" he asked as he reached toward the mouse, which she was still using. "Go back."
"Ok ok, calm down." she swatted his hand away and reversed direction so that Severus could get another look.
"Trolls look nothing like that!" he exclaimed when he had gotten a better look.
Brynn started to snicker, then saw that he was making a serious complaint. She stopped clicking and spun her chair around to face him. "Dear God, you aren't kidding, are you? Real...trolls?"
He smirked at the look of disbelief on her face and replied, "Oh yes, large, ugly, smelly, and very dumb." He then spent the next hour and a half trying to describe various magical creatures to a Muggle who had only vaguely heard about some of them from fairy tale books. She fired questions at him so fast he could have sworn he was ducking spells in a wizard's duel.
She began to seek out various creatures in the game, asking if they really did exist and, if they did, how closely did they resemble the game creatures. "What about that?" she asked as a tiny little person carrying a spear darted across the screen.
"Wood sprites are quite common, yes." he replied as he tried to get a closer look at it. "And I suppose they look something like that."
"Ohhh, wait. I have one!" she said. Then click click click, she flashed out of one map and onto another. "Hang on, hang on..." she muttered as she had Thalia comb the pretend world. "There!" Brynn exclaimed and jabbed her finger toward the screen. "What about those?" she asked with a note of triumph in her voice because she was sure she had found a creature with which to stump him.
"That is very very close to what a cockatrice looks like actually." he replied with his tongue in his cheek. He could tell by her tone she thought she had found something he had never seen before.
"Oh I give up!" she exclaimed and rose to stretch. "Do you want to..." she trailed off because he had already claimed her seat, grabbed the mouse and was clicking away at everything.
"Come back here birdy." He muttered at the screen while he clicked madly, trying to make Thalia peruse the cockatrice.
"Hang on hotshot." Brynn said, correctly reading Severus' intentions to try and fight the cockatrice. "You are going to get me killed." They had a brief tussle for the mouse which he was trying to keep from her.
She won and quickly moved Thalia to a safer map. "Ok, this is better. Go nuts. You can fight with anything on this map. DON'T leave it." She handed him back the mouse, sat, and prepared to be entertained.
For the next few minutes she watched Severus happily click away, fighting with this, harvesting that, and generally having a good time. Occasionally she would show him some hidden feature or remind him to heal Thalia or keep her fed.
Once he had the hang of everything he began to ask more in depth questions. "What are these bars?" he asked.
"Those are my current levels in various skills. That is pretty much the whole point of the game. The higher your levels, the more things you are able to do." This statement, of course, was followed by another barrage of questions.
After he had run out of questions he ran his finger down the side of the screen and muttered to himself. "Attack, defense, harvest, alchemy, magic, potions..." he paused and looked at Brynn, suddenly scandalized. "Your potions level is your lowest one!" he exclaimed.
She frowned and said with a shrug, "I buy all the potions I need. Plus I just recently got the nexus needed to make the better ones..." she trailed off, unsure of why she felt like she had to explain herself.
He huffed out an exasperated breath and asked, "How do you make that level higher?"
"You want to work on my potions level?" she grinned. "Go for it. Here, make these." she showed him how to make Spirit Restoration potions. "Go nuts."
She watched for awhile, making sure he had the hang of it. Eventually she zoned out, but was pulled back to reality when she heard more clicking that was usual. "What are you trying to do?" she asked
"Trying to eat this egg." he replied.
"Trying to eat the egg." Laughing, she grabbed the mouse. "Ok, time for you to start your own character. You just tried to eat my Rostogol stone. Who knows what you are going to try to do if I leave you alone to play."
"Hey!" he exclaimed as she gave the chair he was sitting in a push and he rolled away from the screen. He hadn't realized that the chair had wheels. He wanted that...thing back...that mouse. Brynn was now clicking away in front of the screen again, so he reached inside his sleeve and pulled out his wand. "Acci.."
He never got to finish the spell. Brynn turned, saw the wand, and grabbed it from him. "I have the mouse and the wand. What are you going to do now?" she taunted him with a smile. "Don't hocus pocus me in my own house Severus." The smile slipped off her face as she tossed the wand back at him. "Alright, stop putting my character in mortal peril and come over here and make your own."
She briefly took him through the process. When he understood the basics, she left him to it and went downstairs to make some coffee. While it was brewing, she sat at the kitchen table with her cheek propped up against one hand and stared out the window. The sun was an orange red sliver on the horizon, growing bigger by the minute.
This may just be the distraction she was looking for, Severus' interest in this game. So far he had been in her house for the better part of a month and the experience had been less than pleasant. It was very obvious that he had no desire to be there. Dumbledore had said that Severus wasn't going to be happy with the arrangements that summer but that they were essential to Severus' safety.
Saying that Severus wouldn't be happy had been the understatement of the century. Apparently he hadn't been aware of the arrangements beforehand. So it had been a nasty surprise to him when Dumbledore had disappeared almost as soon as he had introduced Brynn to Severus, all the while rambling off the plans for Severus' summer stay.
Really, he had literally disappeared. With a pop. One second he was there then, POP he was gone. And Brynn had been left dumbfounded by the disappearance, in the company of an extremely angry wizard.
"What do you know about this?" he had growled at her.
"All I know is that you and I are stuck together for the summer. Apparently, you aren't supposed to be seen." Her eyes narrowed at the annoyed look on his face. "I'm not any happier with the arrangement than you are, but I owe Dumbledore a favor, so we are stuck together for the next little while."
He stalked over the picture window and stared outside. "And if I leave?" he asked after a few minutes.
"Do whatever you want." she had replied. "I consider my willingness to let you stay here as repayment enough, especially after having met you."
Crossing the room in two strides, Severus had reached for the doorknob only to be thrown backward by some unseen force. "Damn that meddling old codger!" he exclaimed from the floor.
Brynn had to stifle a laugh. "Well I guess he knew you would try that." she had commented dryly. "The back door is through the kitchen, if you care to try. I could use a laugh."
He stood with as much dignity as he could muster and brushed himself off. "That won't be necessary. It seems, as you said, we are stuck together...for the next little while."
"And I am just as thrilled as you are. Your room is up the stairs and to the right." she said, choosing to ignore the venom dripping from his words. He turned and started up the stairs. "Oh and Dumbledore asked me to put together some Muggle clothing for you. It is all in the dresser, I was told you prefer black and green."
He stopped short at her words and turned. "Muggle clothing?" he had asked.
"Yes." she replied, again ignoring the venom in his words, although it was getting harder to do. "This is a Muggle neighborhood, it won't do for you to be running around in robes."
"A point that would make more sense if I was able to open the door!" he spat, truly annoyed beyond belief.
"Look, Merlin, what do you want from me?" She felt her temper bubble and boil over, she would NOT be treated this way in her own home. "Dumbledore called in a favor so I am helping him out. I am largely in the dark here. I don't know what is going on or why you have to stay here. Lets just try to make the best of what is promising to be a bad situation!"
He had stared at her for a moment, then turned and continued up the stairs. "Promising to be a bad situation indeed." he muttered to himself as he made his way to the room Brynn had indicated would be his.
Brynn shook herself out of her reverie, the sun was almost fully up now. Might as well make some breakfast.
Upstairs, Severus was hunched over the keyboard with the mouse in his hand, staring at the screen as he built his character. He decided that a male elf seemed to be the best choice. He chose dark hair, pale skin, and a black top with gray bottoms. Yes, that looked good, very good.
Now to pick a name... he sat back in his chair to think. An idea popped into his head and a tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He glanced down at the keyboard and prepared to enter the name that had come to him. He needed an H, but the H wasn't where it seemed like it should logically be. None of the letters were. Slightly flustered he hunted down the letters he needed.
When he was finished he clicked on the 'Done' button, like Brynn had said to do. Suddenly the picture on the screen changed. His new character was now sitting around an unlit campfire with many others, some that looked much like his. Words were flashing across the screen faster than he could read them and he began to panic slightly as multicolored sparks flew from his character. He tried to read as more words danced at the top of his screen. 'Pickpoints...perks...wraith.' Oh yes, Brynn had told him about this part of the game.
'Where to start?' he wondered to himself. At almost that exact moment, more words flashed at the top of the screen. 'Start by trying to kill some rabbits.' he read. Well alright, that seemed to be as good a place to start as any. Once again he grabbed the mouse and started to click away.
Eventually he became aware of Brynn standing behind him again, holding two mugs of coffee, one of which she handed to him. "How's it going?" she asked. She had been standing behind him, watching, for some time now. He had been oblivious.
"I was killed by a beaver and a rat and a Brownie." he said testily as he sipped the coffee. "And I can't heal."
She chuckled into her mug causing hot coffee to splash onto her cheeks and chin. "You need the sigils to do that, remember?" she said as she swiped at her face. "And the tutorial NPC will heal you until you are attack level 17."
"You didn't tell me that!" he exclaimed as he slapped his mug down on the desk and grabbed the mouse again.
"If I tell you everything, you will never learn. Besides Professor I figured you would have guessed that the guy with the word tutorial floating above his head could help you out." She wiped up the coffee that had slopped over the rim and onto the desk. "I made breakfast, come down and have some."
"I just did." He jabbed his thumb at the coffee mug
"No wonder you are so damn skinny." she commented as she reached down behind the computer and unplugged the mouse. "Come on, take advantage of the fact that I actually remembered which appliance is the stove. It doesn't happen often." She laughed as Severus jiggled the mouse and clicked madly.
"What happened?" he asked frantically
"Call it Muggle magic." she answered while twirling the end of the mouse cord in the air. Just then she noticed something that she hadn't when she had been standing further away. "You named your character Hocus?" she asked with a grin. "I like it."
She raised her eyebrows as he blushed and looked away. 'Well well, snarky Professor Snape has a shy side.' She thought to herself. 'Interesting.' "Come have breakfast." she repeated and turned to walk away. "Besides, I bet you have a ton of questions. Come ask."
He didn't want to eat, he thought crossly as he rose, he wanted to play. He followed Brynn down the stairs and into the kitchen which was full of wonderful breakfast scents. Despite his earlier protest he felt his stomach grumble. 'Maybe just a quick breakfast then.' he thought to himself. 'Since she went to the trouble.'
After breakfast and roughly another hundred questions, Severus was back in front of the game. He nearly went giddy when he discovered the help encyclopedia icon at the bottom of his screen. As he explored more, he started to put together a plan of action for his character.
Brynn returned after she had cleaned up from breakfast. She stood for a minute, looking over his shoulder, trying to figure out where he was wandering. Suddenly she realized where he was when she saw him picking up bags that were appearing randomly on a beach. An evil grin appeared on her face and she quietly sat behind Severus, pulled out her laptop, and logged into the game as Thalia.
"Hey! It's you!" he exclaimed when he saw Thalia walking toward Hocus. "Do you want to pick up these bags too? They are just appearing... OY!" The last word came out as a shout as he watched Thalia attack and kill Hocus. "Hey! What happened? Where am I? Wheres my stuff?" When he turned, his face was flushed with anger. "Why did you do that?"
"You have to learn about Player Killing maps sometime." she replied. "Better to learn from a friend who won't take your stuff. And you are in the underworld. Head toward the exit. I'll give you your stuff back. And next time, pay better attention when you change maps."
He grumbled some sort of protest, which she didn't fully catch (and decided to ignore anyway) as he made his way out of the firey underworld. Something occurred to him. "I didn't go to the underworld when the animals killed me."
"Your levels are high enough now that you will go to the underworld when you die. You also may lose some or all of your inventory." She explained while Thalia returned Hocus' possessions and then healed him.
"You can heal other people?" he asked, already forgetting about the beating Hocus had just received.
"Yep. Keep working on that magic level." She grinned as he turned back to the screen and was almost instantly absorbed in the game again. It was some time before either of them said anything else, then suddenly...
"I got eaten by a Grue!" Severus exclaimed. "Where was it? I didn't even see it! Whats a Grue?"
Brynn chuckled and decided to have a little fun. "Oh thats right!" she exclaimed as she laid down the book she was reading and rose to look at his screen. "I forgot to tell you abut the Grue! It is invisible, you never know where it is going to be." She had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing at the look on his face.
"But... thats not fair." he whined "I had all my gold coins with me. I was on my way to buy... the healing things."
"Sigils." Brynn felt laughter bubble up in her throat and she couldn't stop it from spilling out. "Don't worry, getting eaten by a Grue just means you lost your connection to the game." She showed him how to reconnect. "See all your gold coins are still there."
"Good." he said while looking pathetically relieved. "It took forever to get those coins."
Brynn went back to her book, wondering how long it would be until Severus figured out that just buying the sigils wouldn't allow him to heal. She kept an eye on his screen as he went about his gaming business, and sure enough...
"I still can't heal!" he exclaimed a few minutes later.
"You need Health Essences." she said without looking up. "Two silver ore and one mum. Get harvesting." she noted the time, grinned to herself and continued to read.
Grumbling, he began to search for mums, felling vaguely ridiculous at the little twist of pleasure that came when he found them without asking Brynn where they were. 'Now for the silver.' He glanced at Brynn over his shoulder. It would certainly be faster to ask her where to find it, but she might not tell him, even if he did. "Silver, silver" he muttered under his breath as he searched his maps.
Suppressing a grin, she checked the time, ten minutes had passed. "Try some caves," she said without lowering her book. "and don't forget a pickaxe."
He glanced back again, "Pickaxe?"
"General store. Bring gold coins."
"But I spent them all!" he exclaimed in frustration.
"Guess you will have to make some more then." she said brightly, using the book to hide the amusement on her face. She was kind enough to tell him some of the best ways for new players to make money. Noting the time again, she went back to her book.
About half an hour later, "I can't harvest silver!?"
"You have to learn how." She told him where he could find the books he needed and warned him that the maps where they could be found held creatures dangerous to new players. "And because I'm nice I'll even tell you that you also have to read these books," she showed him the books section in the help encyclopedia, "before you can make Health Essences. AND I'll even let you know that your harvest level and your alchemy level aren't high enough yet anyway. You remember what I told you about the levels right?"
When he simply nodded, sighed, and reached for the mouse once again, she knew he was hooked. Suddenly the next few months began to look a little better.