I don't own Harry Potter, but I do own myself. OC, don't steal.

(Seriously, though, don't fucking kidnap me. I get testy when I'm kidnapped.)


It was a beautiful night out, and I couldn't help the small smile on my face as I checked my watch, which told me that it was 11:57 (and some-odd seconds) PM on Thursday July 30th, 2015. Why anyone would ever need all that information at once was beyond me, but I don't suppose that displaying the day of the week and the year is really hurting anyone, even if it's not exactly accomplishing anything, either. My smile grew as my phone, which was on shuffle, started playing Stray Cat Strut, which I found incredibly appropriate.

Well, fairly appropriate, anyways: I wasn't broke and homeless anymore, the night was a lot nicer than what was described in the song (about 68 degrees, not a cloud in sight, and a full moon right smack dab in the middle of a beautiful blue sky), and I didn't see a single woman who cried about how much she wished she could be like me, if only her class and style didn't get in the way, but I digress.

As I walked down Memorial Drive in the direction of Harvard Square, I stopped and turned to face the river, which was across the street from me, as my watch beeped twice, indicating that it was now midnight. On a whim, I crossed the street (which didn't have any cars at the moment, luckily) and sat down on a bench facing the Charles, crossing my legs underneath me. My smile grew as Stray Cat Strut ended, only to be replaced with a cover of Moondance.

Squashing the internal debate that arose (the Bubleans and the Morrisons were fighting over whether or not Michael Buble's cover was superior to Van Morrison's original version), I looked across the river at the Boston skyline as I absently ran a hand through my hair, which I'd been meaning to cut for a while. While my left hand was twirling a few strands of over-long hair around my index finger, my right was playing with the zipper of my favorite sweatshirt, which I had left unzipped. I couldn't bring myself to just not wear it, no matter how much the warm weather rendered it utterly pointless: last summer, I had regularly worn it in 90-plus degree heat. I wasn't about to let some punk ass 68 degrees ruin our bond.

To anyone with an outsider's perspective, that probably sounded really weird. I should probably clarify that my sweatshirt and I are not in a romantic relationship.

Anyways, while I was contemplating how much I hated my job, and how much I was looking forward to having my own apartment, and how badly I wanted a can of sprite, the meaning of life, and the reason why I was such a misanthropic dick, a clock behind me struck twelve, jolting me back to reality and annoying me in one fell swoop: I synched my watch to this particular clock at least once a week, and the stupid jerks didn't even have the decency to ring the bell at exactly 60 minute intervals! I was pretty sure that it had struck eleven an hour, four minutes, and sixteen seconds (give or take) ago.

I should probably have words with these guys at some point in the near future.

Shaking my head slightly, I held down the "adjust" button, ready to hit "mode" and reset the second counter to zero the moment the bell had been rung for the twelfth time. Eight, I thought to myself as the bell chimed once again. Nine, ten, eleven, an~d . . . twelve!

Just as I hit "mode," I felt a painful wrench in my gut, Moondance ended and was replaced with At Our Parting, and my last conscious thought was, I hope to fucking hell that's not as prophetic as I think it is.


Well, I thought groggily as I struggled back to consciousness, I'm still alive. That's a thing. Trying to investigate with my senses without having to take the effort of actually opening my eyes, I shifted my focus to what exactly it was I was physically feeling, rather than emotionally. I seemed to be lying down on something rather hard, though not as hard as stone, which was an improvement, really, with something thin and scratchy stretched out on top of me. Running my hand over each, I discovered that the former was wood, and seemed to be a floor, if the way the boards were arranged was anything to go by (it probably wasn't, knowing my luck), while the latter was cloth.

Probably a blanket, I reasoned. But where am I? It's definitely not Pine Street, and I can't think of any other places that van people around like they do. 'Specially not in summer. Is "van" a verb? I know that "bus" is, but I don't think . . . ah well. It totally should be, anyway. Suddenly, I was struck by just how tired I was, and I resolved to investigate this mystery in the morning. After all, I'd slept in far less comfortable circumstances before, and it was at least midnight. Unless I've been moved to another timezone, but that's about as likely as me legally changing my name to Brad Bramish. Brad Bramish'll do what needs to be done! Haven't seen Brick in a while . . . I drifted off back to sleep, grinning slightly.


Sadly, it didn't last long, as the next thing I was aware of was a gigantic crashing noise that sounded as though the apocalypse had decided to take place entirely in my head. "Where's the cannon?" a stupid-sounding voice asked next to me.

Good question, Dud,* I thought irritably as I curled up into a smaller ball and closed my eyes tighter. Carlisle'll be with you in the morning. Sun morning.* If there's coffee.

The noise came again, somehow even louder this time, and I reluctantly threw my blanket off myself, glaring around the room hatefully, trying to find its source so as to stare it down. Seeing what appeared to be a small, grubby cabin (it vaguely reminded me of that place my mom and her husband went with my brother and me in northern Maine for two weeks back when we were kids, except this place was smaller, uninviting, and didn't seem to contain any real furniture), I couldn't see anything that stood out as suspicious, so I glanced at my watch so as make an informed complaint about the time. Normally I wouldn't, but I had been effectively kidnapped (even if whoever had grabbed me had noble intentions, I still kinda annoyed by the whole thing) and wasn't in the best mood at the moment.

My watch wasn't there. Normally, I would assume that somebody had swiped it, but I was wearing a watch, just not mine. Odd, I thought as I examined it. It had a cheap leather band as opposed to the cheap rubber one on my own, its face was made of metal with a paper cover displaying Arabic numerals for numbers one through twelve, and the clasp seemed to have been broken and shoddily repaired. Why am I wearing an analogue watch? I always wear digital. Then my eyes drifted to to my hand.

"Fucking Christ!" I tried to bellow, though my voice come out as a little squeak. My hand was tiny. I hastily raised my right hand to my face to examine it, as well. It matched. Oh no, please no, please no, lots of fucking no, I thought as I ran my hands over my body in a mad panic, trying to ascertain its shape and size. I was goddamn minuscule! I was short! Skinny! No muscles!

A constant mantra of this can't be happening ran through my head as the door was blasted open to reveal a man who, in contrast to myself, was bloody massive. Like, he looked like he ate live cows for light snacks, kind of massive. Proper massive.

While I continued to have a mental breakdown, he had a conversation with two other people who had entered the room from another door that I hadn't noticed earlier. Due to the aforementioned mental breakdown, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to said conversation, but from what little I could process through the mental haze, he seemed to be asking after some kid called Harry. He also seemed to be showing an unhealthy interest in me, considering that I happened to look like a goddamn child at the moment.

I hummed noncommittally at what I deemed to be the right times, knowing that I should probably just agree to whatever was said now and work out the details later. Because that has literally always worked for everyone. Literally. Looking back on some of my past choices, I really want to slap myself in the face. It wasn't until I was being instructed to "kip" under his jacket that I finally put all the pieces together.

A giant man who showed a lot of interest in a young boy called Harry, a kid who was as stupid as he was big (very, on both counts), a huge dude with the best mustache since Kaiser fucking Wilhelm (the third? I can't remember; it's been four years since I took World History as a sophomore (well, three-and-a-half, but who's countin'?)) who seemed to hate everything almost as much as me, and a woman who looked as though she had stolen several other people's necks and stapled them to her own in order to elongate it. For what nefarious purpose I can only guess, though my money's on Satanic warship of Bill Cipher.

One would have been a funny coincidence, two an odd one, and three a bizarre one worthy of at least four posts on Tumblr. All four, though? Yeah, no gettin' around it: I was stuck in the body of an eleven-year-old Harry James Potter.

Hoo-fuckin'-ray.


*I have a tendency to remember dialogue, and I'm pretty obsessed with Harry Potter, so if somebody asked "where's the cannon?" upon hearing a loud noise, this would be my immediate reaction, whether I was in the HP verse or not.

*Sun morning just means when the sun comes up, since it's technically already morning, just really goddamn early morning before anybody in their right mind is anywhere but in bed.


AN: You know what I hate? Self-inserts. So, I figured I might as well do a deconstruction and see if I can't play things a little bit more realistically here. The character's name is Clinton Thomas Marco Carlisle: I got the first and last names from a random name generator and based the middle names off my own (William and Inigo), since I didn't feel like using my actual name for this. Despite that, this character is, for all intents and purposes, me. Anything I say about his past comes from mine, and his entire personality is based completely off my own: I'm not turning him into a Mary Sue just 'cause I need the ego boost, so if that's your primary fear about self-inserts, we're good on that count. This is a bit shorter than the actual chapters will be since it's the prologue (I'll be aiming for around 2,500-3,500 words per chapter in future), I'd love to see some reviews (I dunno if this sort of story appeals to people who aren't clinically insane), and thanks for reading! Peace!


PS: The name of the story comes from the second opening of Blue Exorcist, since it was the first semi-appropriate title that occurred to me.