AN: *sigh* I just can't restrain myself. Yes, I filled another prompt instead of working on 'Learning to Breathe' which is about two pages in right now. Anywho, I couldn't possibly pass this one up. "For reasons unknown the Glee Club starts calling Dalton Academy, Hogwarts. Kurt blames this entirely on Artie."
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything.
It first happens when Kurt comes home for Thanksgiving. It's their first real holiday as a family and his dad and Carole are determined to make it as good as possible. His father picks him up at Dalton early Thanksgiving morning, and Kurt gushes about how great the school is the entire ride home. Burt smiles as he sees the positive change in his son's attitude and demeanor and is privately thankful that they decided to send him there.
When they get home, they are greeted by the rich smell of a turkey cooking. Carole gives him a long, hard hug and welcomes him back. He offers to help her, but she refuses, telling him to go and get himself settled in his room. He finds a second bed set up in his room, much like last spring, with a sleeping Finn sprawled across it. Despite it being almost eleven, he is still sound asleep. This makes Kurt feel less guilty about making noise as he unpacks and puts his clothes away. Finn eventually wakes up enough to throw a pillow at Kurt – or at least in his general direction; it never actually makes it to Kurt – and mumble a sleepy hello.
By one, they're sitting down around the table which is laden with food, and their meal begins. Burt and Carole supply most of the small talk at first; filling Kurt in on what he's missed and what their plans for the new house entail. Finn updates him on what's going on at McKinley, gossip wise, while managing to avoid the topic of Glee club. He swallows a rather large mouthful of potatoes before asking Kurt,
"So how's it going at Hogwarts?"
Unfortunately for Kurt, he had just taken a rather large drink of his sparkling grape juice and choked on the liquid in his mouth. Burt reached over and pounded him on the back as he tried to clear his throat.
"What did you call it?" he managed to choke out.
"Hogwarts," Finn repeated, completely nonplussed. "It's a boarding school isn't it? Just like Hogwarts. But there's not magic at Dalton." All Kurt can do is stare at his new stepbrother in confusion and be thankful that they aren't related by blood.
He passes it off as just something that Finn came up with, but a couple days later he gets a text from Santana of all people.
So what's up with your new school? It's just like a gay Hogwarts, isn't it?
Kurt's brow furrowed as he read it. First Finn, now Santana? Where had they even gotten this idea? Just because it was a boarding school, it was hardly a magical, fictional school full of wizards. And since when did Santana read Harry Potter?
He sent his last thought as a text back to her in reply, and got a threatening message in return. He winced at her creative ideas of torturing him if he ever let it slip that she did read the books, and stowed his phone away in his pocket.
He receives a Facebook message from Sam the next weekend, riddled with misspellings and errors. He winces at the mistakes, but knows about Sam's dyslexia and looks past it. Apparently the other boy is under the delusion that there are secret passageways, moving paintings, and ghosts at his school, much like another, more famous, boarding school.
Kurt is completely and utterly confused at this point. Yes, boarding schools weren't exactly commonplace in Ohio, but where was everyone getting this ridiculous idea that Dalton was the small-town, American version of Hogwarts. Sure, it was decorated a bit more lavishly compared to the cheaply painted walls of McKinley, everyone adhered to a strict, uniformed dress code, and some of the classes were a bit unusual, but it was hardly magical. He quickly typed back a reply to Sam telling him, sadly, Dalton had none of the above.
Kurt's on the phone with Tina later in the week, discussing a pair of shoes that she's debating buying online, when she asks him if there's an Astronomy tower at Dalton.
"Why does everyone think that Dalton is Hogwarts?" he wails out loud, extremely glad that his roommate isn't present at the moment.
"Well, it kind of is, isn't it?" she replies calmly.
"No, it's not," he adamantly states. "Where is everyone getting this idea from?"
"Well," she begins. "It's kind of Artie's fault."
After Kurt had walked out of the choir room, everyone sat in a stunned silence. Silent tears had begun to run down Mercedes' face, but no one moved to comfort her, all too shocked to comprehend what had just happened. Mr. Schuester seemed unable to bring himself to try and continue the meeting and sent them all home early. They had walked out in twos and threes, silently revisiting the scene that had just happened, still not believing it had occurred.
The next day, after having time to digest this new information, they were quietly discussing it among themselves. Mercedes and Finn still sat in silence, not wanting to join in on the conversations.
"Why did he leave?" Brittany asked again, looking around at everyone, her bottom lip quivering. "Does he not like us anymore?"
"No, it's because of stupid Karofsky," Santana reassured her, not looking completely sure of it herself. "It's his fault."
"No it's mine," Puck said suddenly from the corner where he was sitting. Everyone turned around to look at him in surprise. "If I hadn't told him to go spy on them, he wouldn't have even heard of this place and he would be here, not there right now."
"If he didn't go there, he would have found someplace else to go," Rachel replied quietly. "McKinley and its small-minded people are what made him leave."
"What is this place anyways?" Quinn spoke up. "I've never even heard of it before Mr. Schue told us about it."
"Let's look it up," Artie suggested and almost everyone murmured their agreement. After a couple minutes of wrangling, he got his laptop hooked up to the projector and they found the screen that they had used for the "Run Joey Run" showing. Artie brought up the Dalton webpage and clicked on the "Photos" tab.
"Whoa," was the collective agreed upon response. It didn't look like a school; the halls were decorated elegantly, the inside looking more like a mansion than a school. Soon there were pictures of students, all boys, dressed sharply in the matching dark blue and red uniforms. After they had made their way through all the pictures, Artie navigated back to the main page and started looking at the information about the school itself; when it was founded, the list of organizations, and of course, an overview on their non-harassment policy.
"It looks like a castle," Brittany spoke up. "But it's a school. And you can sleep there? I've never heard of any school that you could sleep at. Except for kindergarten, but you still had to go home."
"It's like Hogwarts," Artie said cracking a wry smile. "Kurt's gone to Hogwarts for a while."
"The idea kind of stuck," Tina told Kurt. "And since it made Brittany feel better, Santana insisted that we all follow along. Now, we're kind of used to it."
Kurt had to smile slightly at the idea, but when everyone in the club managed to contact him before Sectionals and make some reference to him now being at Hogwarts, it started to get just a little bit annoying.
He performs at Sectionals with the Warblers, which is incredibly awkward with all his friends sitting in the audience. He feeds off the energy of the other boys though, and makes it through the number with no real issues. Afterwards, all the teams are milling around backstage, waiting for the moment when they go onstage and the winners are announced. Kurt is careful to keep his distance from the white and maroon clad New Direction members. However, this plan fails when he is tackled from behind in a tight hug.
"Hi Brittany," he manages to choke out. For such a slight girl, she has a rather strong grip.
"Kurt!" she exclaims happily. "Voldemort didn't kill you!"
"Um," is his intelligent reply as he feels his face heat up. Some of his fellow Warblers are staring at the two in confusion, although Wes and David have rather mischievous looks on their faces. "Yeah I guess so?"
"Oops, I forgot, I'm not supposed to say his name!" Brittany said, clapping her hands over her mouth. "But you have Harry to protect you."
"I do?" Kurt asked, completely nonplussed at this point. But just then, the announcer comes backstage and tells everyone that it's just about time. Brittany waves cheerfully at him before bounding back over to the McKinley group. He shakes his head in confusion, before getting in line with the rest of his group.
Even after he returns to McKinley, every time Dalton is brought up, someone calls it Hogwarts or references the school in some way, shape, or form. Brittany became convinced that Blaine was some reincarnated form of Harry Potter, and that Wes and David were secretly the Weasley twins. Much to his chagrin, everyone encouraged this idea, and constantly ribbed him about it every chance they got.
Kurt blamed the entire thing on Artie, who was quite pleased with himself for coming up with the idea.
As always, feedback is much appreciated. And I couldn't resist putting in a "Blaine is totally Harry Potter" moment.