Part 1 – Perched Above My Armoire Door

"I can't believe I did it," Jane said out loud to herself as she sat on her bed in her dorm room, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she'd actually performed magic. She looked over at the bed on the other side of the room - Audrey's bed - and sank just a little bit. "I did magic, and it blew up in my face," she lamented, "or, Audrey's head."

Auradon Prep's reigning pink princess was still at the festival, no doubt yelling for Mal to fix her hair. I could've fixed her hair, Jane thought as she let herself fall back onto her bed, staring up at the bed's blue ivory canopy. I probably could've fixed her hair, she then thought.

"Oh, who am I kidding? The only way I could've fixed that hair was to pay for a hairdresser. Better yet, just paid Mal to fix it. I'm hopeless," she said out loud. "I can't do a simple hair spell, and I can't even hold Mom's wand," she moaned as she remembered the disastrous results that happened when she grabbed her mother's wand out of her hand.

She still remembered the way the wand virtually spat out a surge of magic the second she grabbed it. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before. She had nothing to really compare it to, but she figured that the only phrase that came close to accurately describing what shot out was pure, unadulterated raw power. Especially since the blast reached all the way to the Isle of the Lost and punched a hole in the barrier. Jane next remembered the way the wand tried to force its way out of her hands when she tried to cast a spell. It took all of her strength just to keep her grip on it and even then she felt like she was moments from being dragged around the hall.

It certainly didn't help that the first person to yank the wand from her was Mal, and she did without any reactions. Just my luck, she thought, the villain kid is able to hold my mother's want instead of me. It was at that point that she truly believed what all the others kids in school had been saying about her for years. The reason that her mother hadn't taught her magic was because she wasn't capable of it and that despite the fact that she was half-fairy, she didn't have a magical bone in her body. And for the past week, she'd actually believed that.

Then the whole thing with Audrey's hair happened and now she was starting to look at herself differently. Part of her was confused. Part of her was scared. Part of her was excited.

Should I tell Mom, she thought. The fear in her increased with that thought. Knowing my luck, Mom will just grab her wand and permanently strip me of any magical abilities. Not being able to come up with any answers that seemed to benefit her, Jane just fell backwards onto her bed again, grabbed her pillow and held it over her face. "What do I do?" she said, her voice muffled by her pillow.

Caw!

Jane bolted upright in her bed, her head turning in every direction to check for whatever made that sound.

Caw!

Without the pillow, Jane was able to pinpoint the source of the sound this time. She turned and looked up at the top of the armoire on the other side of the room. She heard herself gasp as saw that perched on top of it was a big, black bird.

Jane got off the bed and slowly made her way toward her dresser. As she moved, the raven squawked and flapped its wings. Jane kept her eyes on the winged intruder and moved her hand over the dresser until she found her hair brush.

"Nice bird. Pretty bird," she said, trying her best to sound calm.

As quickly as she could, Jane raised her hand and threw the hair brush at the raven. The brush completely missed. The bird squawked and flew off the armoire. Jane screamed and covered her head as she ran across the room and dove onto Audrey's bed. When she looked back up, she saw that the raven had taken a position on her bed.

Great, just what I need, bird poop all over my sheets, she thought.

"Shoo!" she shouted at the bird. It just looked back at her, its glossy eyes shining. "Go away!"

Caw!

Suddenly a knock on the door startled Jane, causing her to squeal loudly.

"Jane is everything okay?" came a voice from outside the room. The raven squawked once more and then leapt off the bed. It spread its wings and quickly took its leave by flying out the open window near Jane's bed. "Jane?" came the voice again, this time louder to be heard over her knocking.

"I'm," Jane started, and then quickly cleared her throat as she realized that her voice was much higher than normal. "Uh, yeah, I'm okay," she said, her voice sounding more normal even though she could still feel her heart pounding like a jackhammer.

Part 2 – Enter the Pirate

It had been a few days since Jane had gone through the most stressful Saturday of her life. Audrey's hair was back to normal and she seemed to completely forget Jane's part in that debacle, mostly because she was preoccupied with the school's newest villain kid, Freddie. What surprised everybody was the fact that even Mal seemed to share the same concern over Freddie that Audrey did. Those two agreeing on something never really happened, so it made everyone nervous.

With Audrey's preoccupation, Jane was able to try and think about what to do about her magical problem. On the one hand, she loved that she knew she was capable of magic. On the other, it still made her wonder what else she was capable of, and if she should try and test her limits. She racked her brain on what to decide as she sat alone at lunch. Her sandwich and fruit sat uneaten on the ground next to her as she sat on the soft grass, her back resting against a tree.

She was looking at the branches of the tree, watching as an apple hung over her head. She focused all her attention on it, and surprised herself when she realized she was actually trying to, for lack of a better term, will it to fall to her. Come on, she thought as the apple remained unmoved, I once saw Mom do something like this when I was little, and without the wand. She concentrated harder, but the apple remained unmoved.

"Trying to move it or blow it up?" a female voice asked, startling Jane and breaking her concentration.

Looking up, Jane saw a tall, willowy looking girl with long blonde hair. She was dressed in tight form fitting black pants and matching knee-length boots folded at the top, a loose fitting white blouse with a black leather belt and red captain's jacket that looked like it came straight off a ship.

"Um...huh?" Jane asked, momentarily confused.

"The apple," the girl clarified. "Are you trying to move it, or blow it up?" she repeated more slowly, though not in a condescending manner.

"Oh, um, move it, from up there to my hand down here," Jane answered. "Problem is, I'm still kind of new at the whole magic thing."

"New?"

"I cast my first spell like, four days ago."

The blonde sat down across from Jane. She crossed her legs Indian-style and smoothed out her coat. "Why don't you get your Mom or Dad to help? I'm sure they would, seeing as they're the ones who gave you your magic," she said. Jane was trying to place her accent. She definitely heard the dominant British ancestry, but there was something else about it, like it had been muddied up.

"I can't. My dad's not really…he's not around, died when I was little," Jane said sadly.

"Sorry there, love."

"It's okay, I didn't get my magic from him anyway," Jane explained.

"What about your Mom?"

"Won't teach me. I've begged for years, but she says that now that she's hung up her wand, the only 'magic' she'll teach me is from books, and she doesn't mean the spell ones."

"Wand?"

"Yeah," Jane told her slowly, disbelief that this girl didn't know who she was. It wasn't that Jane considered herself all that popular, but everyone knew who the Fairy Godmother was. "Not from around here?"

"Visiting."

"Oh, well, my mother is the Fairy Godmother," Jane clarified.

Jane saw the girl's eyes widen and her lips curl into a smile. "You're Jane," she said in surprise.

"Do we know each other?" Jane asked suspiciously.

"No, but I watched the coronation on the telly, I -"

"Oh God," Jane said as she buried her face in her hands. After a taking a deep breath she looked up. "You watched me try to steal my Mom's wand, didn't you?"

"You certainly didn't have the best laid plan, but it was nice effort," the stranger told her. "But I just have to know, what the hell happened once you grabbed it?"

"The wand basically, for lack of a better term, fought back. Mom says it was the wand's way of telling me I was unworthy to hold it." Jane said in lamentation. When she saw the questioning look the strange girl was giving her, she continued. "Mom says the wand isn't a hereditary right, its…more merit based. Basically, the wand choses its wielders, which sucks for me, because deep down, I was kind of hoping to go from Fairy God-daughter to Fairy God-mother."

"My Dad says that sometimes we have be shown what we can't be, so we can figure out what we can," the stranger said. "Of course I think he just said that to compensate for not being able to play the piano as well as he used to."

Jane laughed at the off handed joke, but took the advice. She was about to say thank you for lessening her stress when the girl spoke again. "Have you tried to start with something smaller? Like say…I have no clue what to start with," she said laughing.

Jane smiled at the effort to help her out and nodded her head. Jane looked around and when she was certain that no one was watching, she held her hand out toward the small bowl that held her fruit. She focused on it and moved her hand forward, smiling proudly as the bowl slid slowly against the grass.

"Brilliant," said the blonde.

"Thanks," Jane beamed. "That's why I was hoping to move up to moving the apple from the tree, but it's just not working."

"How are trying it?" Jane looked at her new acquaintance questioningly. "How are you trying to move the apple? To your hand? Away from the tree? Does it even matter how you move it?"

Jane perked up; her face lighting up as if she'd just realized what she was doing wrong. She once more looked at the apple and to the amazement of both girls, the apple shook and finally it fell, landing just a few inches in front of Jane.

"Yes," she squealed. "I just needed to separate it from the tree, gravity would do the rest."

"Nice," said the stranger as she picked up the apple. "Do you mind, haven't eaten all day."

"Go ahead. If you want, you can have half my sandwich to go with it."

"Thanks, love," the girl said as she reached over and grabbed the offered lunch.

"I'm Jane by the way," Jane said holding out her hand after she realized that neither of them had actually introduced themselves.

"Harriet," the new girl said through a mouthful of roast beef and Swiss. She shook Jane's hand and swallowed. "Harriet H-"

Caw!

"Where the bloody hell did that come from?" Harriet asked as both girls looked up, and saw a large raven perched on the same branch that previously held the apple.

"I think he's following me," Jane told her as she reached up and took a bite of her half of the remaining sandwich.

"That's not creepy at all," Harriet said sarcastically.

"At first it was, but now, not so much. He's actually been bringing me things." Harriet looked at Jane doubtfully. "He does," she reiterated, "A couple of day ago he brought me rosebud. The day after that, he brought me a piece of quartz rock, and yesterday he brought me a chrysalis."

"And none of those things seem weird to you?" Harriet asked as she took a bite of the apple.

"Kind of, mostly because the things seem random, but I'm thinking that that they're part of something."

"Like what?"

Jane shrugged her shoulders. "Don't know. I've got a few people I can ask, the hard part is figuring out who won't tell my mother," Jane explained as she grabbed a piece of fruit from the bowl and held it in her open hand. "Want some?" she offered to the bird. The raven squawked and flew down to the ground. He walked over to Jane and grabbed at the offered morsel, snatching it in its beak and dropping it to the ground. The girls watched as he began pecking at it, using his beak to break it apart.

"Surely you can narrow down the list of little helpers?" Harriet asked her as she took another chunk out of the apple.

Jane just looked at her and smiled, albeit worrisome.

Part 3 – The Book of Knowledge

It was Saturday afternoon and Jane was psyching herself up for her day. She adjusted the pink ribbon holding her hair in a ponytail for what seemed liked the hundredth time. It's not like it matters if my ribbon's straight, she thought to herself, Freddie's not gonna care. And yet despite knowing that Freddie was going to be indifferent, she still obsessed. It wasn't from some need to look her best for Freddie in particular; it was just an old habit. Whenever Jane felt nervous, she tended to fixate on something she had a modicum of control over, whether that control was real or imaginary didn't matter.

Before Mal and the other VKs arrived, she tended to obsess over her looks, and apparently, old habits die hard. Only now, instead looking in the mirror and thinking that her nose was too big or that her teeth weren't straight enough or that her skin was too pale, it was her hair. After the whole coronation incident, she had gone to her mother, practically in tears over the fact that gum had accidentally gotten in her usual bob cut. She told her that after seeing how bad the situation was, the only remedy that didn't involve magic was cutting her hair to get the gum out.

Unfortunately, so much of the sticky stuff had gotten in that she was left with enough hair for a pixie cut - a cut even Jane refused to try and make work. After enough pleading, Fairy Godmother relented and used magic to fix Jane's hair, although she only added length. She made sure that her daughter knew that magical styling was off limits. Jane smiled as she thought back to the glee on Evie's face when she asked her to help out, leaving the younger fairy with her now red streaked brown locks.

She tightened the ribbon one last time and decided to stop stalling and just get through with this. She mustered her resolve, walked over to her dresser, and grabbed the written list of current items that the bird had brought her. She folded it and placed it in her purse and walked out of her room, trying her best to walk normal despite the nerves.

She knocked on Freddie's door and counted off the seconds in her head while she waited for her to answer. With each passing second Jane almost gave in to her nerves and ran, but before she could make the final decision, the door opened.

"Yes?" she heard Freddie say as she slid her head through the cracked opening.

"Um, hi Freddie, it's me, Jane. We met in my Mom's office when you were getting your classes."

"I remember. How can I help you?" Freddie said quickly, as if she was being inconvenienced by the headmistress's daughter.

"Well, I, um, I kind of need you to help me perform some magic."

Jane watched Freddie's mouth curl into a smile that would make the Cheshire cat jealous and bat her eyes at her. "As tempting as that sounds, I'm kind of busy. You could try Mal," she told her as she closed the door.

Well that went well, she thought as she stared at the door for a few seconds. She started to make her way down the hall, racking her brain with who she could ask when suddenly she heard the door reopen.

"Jane," she heard a familiar, muddied British accent call out.

"Harriet?" she called back as she turned around. Harriet nodded and motioned for her to return to the room. "Freddie is the friend you're here to visit?"

"Yeah, it was supposed to be a secret, too, Harry," Freddie said in a faux-sweet tone as Jane entered Freddie's room. Jane looked around and gathered that Freddie's roommate, Bernadette, the daughter of Esmeralda and Phoebus, was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh come off it, she's probably here because of what I told her, isn't that right, love?" Harriet told Freddie before addressing Jane. Jane nodded and Harriet returned her gaze, this time a little more steeled, toward Freddie. "And I've told you never to call me Harry, haven't I, Frederique."

Freddie looked back at Harriet with a similar steeled expression, her eyebrow raised defiantly. "Fine, what can I do for you?" she asked Jane sweetly as she shut the door and went to sit on her bed.

"I need a little help with some magic. A raven's been bringing me stuff and it looks like they might be ingredients, but I just don't know. I was hoping, you know, since your Dad was a, a, um…," Jane stuttered as she tried to find a gentle way of describing Freddie's father.

"A witch doctor? Or a villain?" Freddie asked flatly.

"I was going to say the first one," Jane told her skittishly. "I was hoping he taught you spells, you know, in case you ever made it off the isle."

Freddie looked at Jane, her face blank. She didn't know if she was being conned, mostly because Jane didn't look like the kind of person capable of conning anyone. She turned toward Harriet, and saw that the pirate daughter was smiling cheekily at her. "And you volunteered me for this?"

"Not you specifically, but I did tell her to ask someone with magical knowledge."

Freddie bit the inside of her cheek, her instincts telling her to tell Jane no, because getting involved with the Fairy Godmother's daughter had trouble spelled all over it. But then, her mind focusing on a particular word of Jane's request, she smiled and thought what the hell.

"What did the bird bring you?"

Jane reached into the pocket of her sweater and pulled out a list of what had been brought to her. "Rosebud, chrysalis, quartz rock, ginger root, ashes, animal fur," Freddie whispered the list to herself.

"The list's gotten bigger," Harriet commented.

Jane nodded.

"Animal bones?" Freddie asked with bewilderment. "How'd he get animal bones?"

"And what kind of animal?" Harriet asked.

"I'm hoping he just found an animal that was already dead and not one that he, you know…"

"Killed," both Harriet and Freddie asked in dread.

That was the same thought Jane tried not to think about. She knew that there were birds that could kill, but she'd never read anywhere of a raven doing so. They were more scavengers than predators.

"Loved to help you F.G.," Freddie said as she handed back the list, "but I can't." Jane took back the list slowly, a look of dejection on her face. Even Harriet was looking at her with a certain amount of disbelief. "What? It's not that I don't want to help, I can't."

"And why not, Freddie?" Harriet asked pointedly.

"Well, Harriet," Freddie began sarcastically in a mock British accent, "I don't know what spell these things would be used for. I'd have to check a spell book." Both Harriet and Jane looked at her expectantly. Harriet even pointed to Freddie's closet. "I don't have one with me; I'd usually look this up in my Dad's, but his is back on the isle. Which means, you're plum out of luck," she finished at Jane.

"What if I could get you a spell book?" Jane asked.

"From where?"

Jane just smiled at the young witch doctor.

A few hours later Jane was knocking on Mal and Evie's door. She was even more nervous than when she was planning on talking to Freddie. That plan only held the possibility of being told no. This plan held the possibility of pissing off someone who proved she could use magic for payback, of alienating her from the first real friends she'd had, and worst off, getting her in trouble with her mother. She bit her lip as she waited for the door to open. She was just about to knock again when it finally opened.

"Hey Jane," Evie greeted as she opened up. "Coming by for a touch up?" she asked in reference to Jane's hair.

"No, just um, wondering if I could crash here for a little bit." Evie nodded and moved to let her in. "Hey, Mal," Jane said as she walked in and saw Mal on her bed, sketching in her book.

"Hi Jane," she said slowly, her concentration fixed on her sketch pad.

"Why can't you be in your room?" Evie asked. Jane immediately looked back, shock written on her face. "Not that we don't want you here, it's just unexpected."

"Oh um, Audrey has the girls from the cheerleading squad over to talk about the positions on the squad that need filling. They get kind of loud, and I was trying to take a nap," she explained, trying her best to sound convincing, and not like she was bursting at the seams from lying through her teeth.

"Feel free," Mal said as she finally looked up from her sketch book. "Me and E were just about to go over and meet the boys, hang out for a while."

"Yeah, why don't you come with us instead; Carlos will be there," Evie said in a flirty tone. Jane blushed at the implication of Evie's words. It was no secret that both Evie and Mal knew about her crush on the youngest VK, and while part of her wanted to join in and talk to him, she decided against it. I'm on a mission, she told herself.

"No, I'm good. I just really need some rest, haven't been feeling well."

"Feeling sick?" Mal asked, her voice finally not monotone, concern coming across it.

"No, just rundown, what with what happened with Audrey's hair, and continuously apologizing for it."

"When is she going to let that go?" Evie asked. "I mean, you fixed her hair for her after all," Evie told Mal.

"Princesses, never happy," Mal complained. Evie shot Mal a sideways glance. "Present company excluded," Mal backpedaled.

"Better," Evie said as she grabbed her tiara and fixed it on top of her head. "Stay as long as you want, we'll be back in a few hours."

"Thanks," Jane said as she saw the two girls out. Once they were gone, she locked the door and went to work. She knew that Mal kept her spell book in the room, but wasn't sure which hiding spot she was using. During the other times she's been here, she learned that Mal taped it to the top of her closet, a fake bottom in the drawer on her bedside table, or sometimes, in Evie's closet. She doubted that it would be in Evie's closet right now.

Walking over to Mal's closet, she spread the clothes and switched on the light. She walked in and looked up and smiled when she saw the book on the ceiling. Then she cursed her bad luck when she realized that she was too short to just reach up and grab it. Thinking on how to reach it, she grabbed one of the desk chairs and took it into Mal's closet. She got on top of the chair and took a moment to steady herself, and reached up, careful to watch her balance in her kitten heels. She wedged her fingers into an open gap between tape and the ceiling and used it to pull the book down.

She tugged a little harder than she meant to and the book fell to the floor. Leaving the chair where it was to help her return the book later, grabbed it and went to Mal's bed. She began to flip through the pages, reading spell after spell, copying anything that looked interesting, and safe, to try later. Finally after almost an hour, she had copied down almost twenty spells in addition to three spells that had ingredients lists that matched the items she had now. All she needed to narrow it down was a few more ingredients, and she was pretty sure that the raven would take care of that.