PREFACE

Hogwarts University for the Magically Minded (H.U.M.M.) was celebrating its bicentennial when it hired Miss Granger, though it had only been operating under that name for the past thirty of those years. Previously, it had been one "M" short: Hogwarts University for the Magical, but, when Albus Dumbledore had taken charge back in 1968, he'd opened admissions to muggle students as well and changed the name correspondingly, a revolutionary and still highly controversial decision. Dumbledore had never minded the criticism. As he'd argued in a thousand different interviews, always calmly stroking the tip of his beard as he spoke, the muggle world was still by-and-large unaware of the wizarding community's existence, and it was silly to estrange those who were already in the know. They could help bridge the gap, hide the holes, work the PR, and Dumbledore's successor as head of H.U.M.M. agreed in all respects; the more the two cultures could work together without conflict, the better for all.

Hermione, too, was an avid believer in the potential of integrated education, and, as a muggle-born, she thought it was highly likely that affirmative action was the only reason H.U.M.M. had hired her in the first place (as well as the peculiar interest that the man who'd interviewed her had seemed to have in her legs) because, at twenty-eight, she was far too young to be a professor by anybody's standards. Hermione had been made well aware of this fact every day for the past four years.

Now she was thirty-two, a rising star in the potions department, and everything she'd worked for was about to come crashing down around her ears.

For Ron, the crash had come long ago. He'd thought he knew where his life was going when he was twenty-three and holed up with Hermione in what was probably the cheapest flat in Norfolk. But Hermione had wanted to go back to school. Ron hadn't. They'd split, and he hadn't really found solid footing since, hadn't, in fact, ever managed to fully untie himself from the remaining knots of Hermione's heartstrings. Yesterday, he'd been evicted from his latest apartment, and, with half a case of beer, half a head of hope, and very little sense, he'd hopped the next train up to that castle in the mountains, the last place that he'd felt like he really knew where he was.

Harry, the great hero of their generation, had been hired right out of H.U.M.M. as an auror, and, while he'd maintained constant contact with his school friends through letters, phone calls and e-mails, he'd been too busy with big things of late to really drop by and chat much. Now, however, the situation was… complicated… and as soon as he realized he needed a place to hide out for Merlin-only-knew how long, a certain bushy-haired friend popped immediately to the forefront of his mind as if by a conjuring spell.

Harry came only one train behind Ron.

Across an ocean and half a continent, Sam Campbell had spent his freshman year at the American Academy of Witchcraft, hidden away in the complex rock structures and unexpected rivieras of the northern New Mexican desert, and he'd fully anticipated staying there for the next three years, but that'd been before he'd gotten the call from the stumbling police officer back in Kansas who couldn't seem to say the word "dead."

It'd been two days into the first semester of Sam's sophomore year and he'd been high on the buzz of new courses and old friends, but he knew as soon as the man had said, "I'm sorry," where the conversation was going to end. Mary had, after all, been sick for close to a decade, so it was less of a surprise and more of an inevitable bullet hole through his chest when his brain pieced together the officer's unspoken message of doom.

The plan had been in place since the second opinion had come in two years ago; Sam was to go to his great aunt across the Atlantic. He was nineteen, an adult in the eyes of the law, and technically he could do whatever the fuck he wanted, but Mary was dead, and so it wasn't about what Sam wanted anymore; it was about what she'd wanted, and she'd wanted him to go to this British aunt. Sam had never met Mrs. Longbottom, but her grandson had come to visit a time or two when Sam was growing up, and so he wasn't as apprehensive as he might've been through the whole process of sorting out the final funeral bills, packing his bags, waving goodbye to the sun-kissed hue of his skin, and slouching onto the red-eye flight to Heathrow.

Dean Winchester was twenty-three and proud to say he had two things to his name: a G.E.D. and a give-'em-hell attitude. He also had a pain-in-the-ass dad who'd been rubbing him the wrong way for the past six months and was now just asking to be punched. Dean and John were a father-and-son team of muggles who were hip to the whole wizards and witches business, and they'd made it their goal to save as many sorry bastards (ignorant muggles) as they could from all that magical mumbo-jumbo: cursed objects, werewolves, vampires, hags, ladida, so on and so forth. But John was the ex-military type who couldn't stand to see Dean peeling away from the family unit as he matured, and, after a particularly vicious shouting match, they'd both agreed that it was time for Dean to get out for a while…

…Dean just hadn't known "out" meant England. And worse, school. British people and books… Hosanna!

So, it was on the same unassuming, rainy Wednesday that all five ended up on the Hogwarts grounds with not a clue in the world as to just how tangled up their lives were soon to become.


Author Note: Hey y'all. This chapter was just to set up this AU, where all the characters are and so such. Later chapters will be longer, much less summary-like, and told more-so from a real POV. Also, in case it was unclear, this world is basically the Harry Potter world, not the Supernatural one, except there are a lot more muggles in this universe who know about and are involved in the workings of the magical world.

Hope people are as excited about this as I am! Please review if you have time. :)