AN: I am currently in a TNBC phase where it is all I can seem to think about. Therefore, I decided to use it to cure my writer's block in the formation of my first fanfic. So far, I am very proud of it. I hope you will enjoy it as well. Review if you want, criticism is appreciated.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or The Nightmare before Christmas. No suing.

The Dark Lord's Nightmare

It was a dark and chilly Halloween night and the sky was clear and cloudless. Countless stars surrounded a bright full moon like sequins. Dozens of flashes of colored light interrupted the darkness. In the street below the sky's spectacle were people clothed in brightly colored robes who were shooting streams of light at others garbed in black.

A young man with brown hair and twinkling blue eyes stood at the center of the fray in a shimmering blue robe. His name was Albus Dumbledore, age 25. Directly beside him was another man, tall and handsome with messy black hair and shining green eyes full of mischief. He wore an eccentric black and white striped suite with a bat for a bowtie. He was Jack Skellinton, Albus's best friend. Tonight was his 26th birthday.

Soon the pair was back to back and surrounded by the black robed enemy. Their mowed down brethren lay either dead or unconscious outside of the circle. Albus trembled in terror, mind and heart racing. Jack on the other hand seemed cool and calm. It gave Albus chills. Sometimes he wondered if his friend was even human, though he knew he was since they had spent much of their childhood lives together.

He was brought out of his musings when the gathering of black dressed figures parted to reveal whom he assumed to be their leader, Lord Grindelwald. The gap closed as the man stepped completely into the circle of his followers. Albus, his throat paper dry and unable to utter a single spell, was scared stiff. Jack, he noticed, did not appear phased in the least by the lord's sudden appearance. In fact, his resolve seemed to strengthen rather than weaken. To him this was a chance to end it, once and for all.

"Albus, listen to me. One of us is not going to live to see the morning. I am not going to let it be you. You have an important future ahead, of that, I am certain. Just as I am certain I was not meant to be a part of it. I'm sorry," said Jack with a note of sadness.

"No! Don't do it!" cried Albus, fully aware of what spell was on the tip of Jack's tongue. Jack paid him no mind as he uttered the words of his own destruction and his friend's salvation. There was an intense flash of blue light and a massive wave of magical energy, and then it was over. He was alone, surrounded by the corpses from both sides including his best friend.

"I swear Jack, your sacrifice will not have been made in vain," he whispered in despair. It was unlikely Jack's death would have been in vain anyway, however, since it accomplished his goal of killing Grindalwald and ending the war against the first dark lord. Therefore, Albus's words were void of any true meaning.

--

Many years later, an old man bolted awake from the nightmare created by his memories of that fateful Halloween night. He had not dreamt of that night in many years and the sudden reoccurrence disturbed him greatly. However, he was not the only one. In a place the old headmaster could only ever see in his nightmares, another had awoken due to the same dream. This individual, however, made no connection between the dream and himself. He had already forgotten most of it. The skeleton could only scratch his skull and wonder before drifting back into the realm of sleep. Little did the two know that fate would someday throw them together again.

Back in Halloween Town, a certain skeleton was walking home after that year's Halloween celebration. It had been a complete success, as always. Though, for some reason Jack wasn't in the best of moods. He was thinking about the night before when he had awoken to a strange dream. He could not remember it clearly. It had faded into a vague fuzziness the moment he had opened his eye sockets. The more he tried to remember the dream the further away it floated from his grasp. Much like whenever he attempted to remember his life before Halloween Town. Perhaps it had been a memory, only able to come to him in sleep. He did not know.

Little did he know that he was in for a surprise. In the Real World, or the Mortal Realm, a group of wizards gathered in a dank basement for a very special task assigned to them by their lord. They gathered in a circle, joined hands around some form of pentagram, and began to chant. This ritual, much to the oblivious Pumpkin King's misfortune, was designed to summon spirits who had passed on to the next world. Simply put, it summoned the dead. Why the group sought to summon a dead spirit was anyone's guess. Nevertheless, they did and that was all that would matter. Half way through the spell's completion one of the circle members forgot the words. The spell backfired and killed every single person present in a great flash of green light.

--

Jack felt something grab him with a powerful jerk. When he opened his eye sockets, he was in the basement surrounded by a dozen or so corpses of dead wizards. Of course, he did not know what they were only that they were dead as doornails. The gathering had managed to summon their desired dead spirit, but at the cost of their own lives. The skeleton scratched the top of his skull in puzzlement. Where was he? Certainly not the underground lair of Oggie Boogie, that was much more colorful than the dreary place he was in now.

"Well I might as well figure out where I am. Maybe someone can help me get back. There are only 365 days until next Halloween," he groaned as he made his way up the stairwell to the surface. He emerged in an abandoned house that was about to collapse any moment. Termites had eaten away the majority of the wood, making the frame dangerously unstable. If it were not for that Jack could say it was rather cozy. It was not tiny, but not particularly large with two stories and decent floor space. He found the front door with relative ease only to find it boarded tightly shut. Scratching his chin, he examined the door, thinking of a way he could open it.

He did not get very long to think. Just as an idea surfaced in his mind, the door exploded inward in a shower of wooden splinters. Startled, he instinctively threw up his arms to protect his face. This was unnecessary of course since he was a skeleton. When the dangerous door fragments had all fallen to the floor with a clatter he lowered his spindly arms and blinked dumbly as a menagerie of oddly dressed mortals crowded into the house. Each was wearing a brightly colored robe and pointing at him with sticks. Giving them his friendliest smile, he put his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

They were an odd bunch, several of them redheads. One man had a long crooked nose and greasy black hair. Jack imagined he would have done well for himself in Halloween Town. Another looked gray with sickness but his golden eyes burned with a fierceness that belied his ragged appearance. A woman with color changing hair was a bit distracting, and… His gaze fell upon an old man who was at the head of the crowd. He was dressed in purple with silver stars and had a long white beard. A tall wizard's hat and half-moon glasses perched atop his nose completed the look. But what interested Jack were his twinkling blue eyes. They looked terribly familiar but he couldn't place where he would have seen them before.

Albus Dumbledore was equally perturbed. The figure before him had a very familiar air about him, especially the suite. The only person he had ever seen wear a suite like that had been his best friend. It looked like the exact same suite. No, that was not possible. Was it? Dumbledore questioned whether he was going senile the way everyone thought he was. Perhaps it would be best to get it over with and ask the skeleton's name. What could it hurt? Besides, the sooner he confirmed his own sanity, the better.

"Who are you, my boy?" he asked. Those around him began to whisper and shuffle their feet. What was their leader doing talking to a skeleton? They all nearly fell over in shock when he received an answer. No one, least of all Albus Dumbledore, expected what that answer would be.

"Why, my name is Jack Skellington. I'm the Pumpkin King."