I do not own the rights to any elements of the Harry Potter Universe, the Marvel Comics X-Men Universe, nor any part of Doctor Who. No copyright infringement is intended.

Bold italics are stage directions; the rest is just for emphasis, etc...

Very liberal narration, you'll maybe notice. Very loose fit into canon (it is a crossover medley), and semantic tomfoolery.

I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it.

Any feedback is a plus, much appreciated even if negative (especially if negative in fairness).

Cheers

As of 11/06/2017 there has been a slight change to the contents of this chapter. If you miss it, it is written in the next footnote, in the interests of new readers being unspoiled.

September the 2nd, 2039:

01:43 p.m

F.X: knock on the door

A: What?

Will'um: muffled, it's the post, mate.

A: Post? What are you talking about?, you clod, I get no post. We've been over this before: all my correspondence is numerical; now do one!

Will'um: I know all that mate, but it's got your name on it, mate...

F.X: door opens

A: Let me have that! reading The Wart, A. King, room 379, third floor University campus Block B, Nancy, Fra – to Will'um – Buzz off!

F.X: door shuts abruptly

Will'um: Ooo! Mate, me nose ooo...

Dear Diary,

The envelope contained one letter, written in biro on a neat square of recycled industrial paper, and another envelope, this of much finer fibres, and a little weathered at the edges. The latter contained yet another letter, also very frail, but lovingly scribed in lush black ink. Starting with the former, I have copied the contents of both below:

Dear Artie,

You remember Bernstein from primary school? The one we never saw at junior high even though his family never moved? I have news from him. He wrote to me about this fantastic place, "Hogwarts", where you learn magic and how to become a sorcerer. For real. Apparently their top brass has approved a kind of expansion program for the admission of mutants into the school, and now is the time to start signing on! The shoddy parchment is a joint invitation for the two of us (sent by Bernstein on behalf of them, since we live off the grid etc...)

Seriously, drop everything. I think you can do without another master languages degree; this is the biggest thing since Xavier's school, I swear. I'm leaving tomorrow, 09:00 a.m. If you don't want repeat visits from your dumbass doorman bearing tea-stained tissue paper with faded blotchy runes (they'll work out where you live eventually), join me at the station. We can have a cuppa chez Paul's.

Love, Cass

Dear Sirs,

We have the honour of inviting you to join the Pan-Solaric Association for the Study of Alternative Forces, among many thousands of pioneering students, on a new course specially elaborated for Mutant Kind as a legitimate actor in the Wizarding World.

With my sincerest salutations,

T. Tricophen, Spokesman for the Central Committee

September the 3rd:

09:27 a.m

Dear Diary,

From the ground it looked like no more than a carefully restored steam train, with huge locomotive, flimsy wooden carriages et al. I thought nothing of it. Lots of agencies who manage their own transport prefer style over substance. That's why we still see the occasional aeroplane dodging over a sky-full of zeppelins. However, to my knowledge, regardless of copious furnishing with oak, mahogany, comfy brown couches and brass doorknobs, no railroad vehicle habitually and candidly takes to the skies – and at that without ostensibly even coming off the tracks. Granted it doesn't much sound like tracks; beneath the (actually quite reassuring) chugga-chugga of the steam engine is a low drone, like scraping a key against a piano string. Certainly we're not on rails – and I have witness my beloved Nancy sinking below the clouds – but not flying either. The windows are inexplicably jammed, so I can't stick my neck out and get answers. I'm told our terminus is what I suppose must be a space station in orbit somewhere. Lina, of course, attributes all of the how and logistics to magic. She won't say anymore than in the letter. Nothing useful anyway: someone, a flight attendant, stewardess...ticket collector?, (What do you call the staff on a space ferry train?) had the bright idea to leave some ages-old newspapers in the cabins for passengers to read; and so on she goes, reading semi aloud, commenting effusively every 15 or so words. It doesn't seem to bother her that as I nod at her, wince and frown sporadically as if attentive at all to the exquisite play of her lips, the shake of her head, her rippling lava-red hair and the glittery green of her ever flitting eyes, my quill pen writes continuously, audibly scratching ink onto paper, so that it's quite shamefully obvious my focus is elsewhere. It shouldn't bother me, really, after years and years of like behaviour between us. Some things you just never get used to.

11:08 a.m

Receptionist: Name?

Lina: Pauline Franklin.

Receptionist: to A, Why do you keep calling her "Cass"? I heard you a mile off.

A: 'Pending on mood, my dear fellow, I do address this good lady friend of mine as Cass, Cassandra, Lina, Nina, Allie, Ollie, Polly and any other diminutive that catches my fancy.

Receptionist: I see. Well while we're at it, what's your nickname?

A: Nick.

Receptionist: Um. to Lina, Age?

Lina: 38

Receptionist: Now you're being funny!

Lina: Well... If you insist on cohering with my looks let's say 21.

Receptionist: Right. Um, place of birth?

Lina: Franco-Scots Empire, Dublin.

Receptionist: That'd make you 11 years old.

Lina: All right, fine. Bar-le-Duc; unregistered child. The day the hospital blew up.

Receptionist: Very good...

F.X: counter goes ding

Receptionist: ...So, one inscription form for P. C, C, L, N, A, O, P – and others – Franklin; aged 21, born in Bar-le-Duc without the registry system, 38 years ago. Nothing odd there.

A: You know what I think is odd?

Lina: I can see it coming. 'Something nagging me since I opened my trap…

A: We're all speaking perfect English! to Receptionist, It's normal for me, I dunno about you – and in fairness you do get loads of decent anglophonics throughout Europe nowadays, even in the dusty corners – but it's not normal for a bunch of people, including 'Pauline' here, who I distinctly heard, back down there board the train nattering in anything from thick mosellan accents to some abominable medley of American 'r's, French and British 'a's, 'd's, and 't's…

Lina: You're right. You should have corrected me a half dozen times by now…

A: …to suddenly start spewing Received Pronunciation!

Receptionist: I'll give you this: you're the last two in line but you're the first to notice today.

Lina: Fascinating, isn't it? to Receptionist, So is it magic?

Receptionist: Of course not! The type of spell needed for manipulating your higher cognitive functions like that would be a nightmare to conceive. Why, there must be pages worth of bad Latin, neo-Greek and ink splotches to string together. And recite by heart. Then you'd have to keep re-casting the spell all the time – and open an insane asylum for the poor sods you hire to do that. Out here on the fringe of Space it's off the cards for sure. No, not magic, just a piece of alien technology, the Translation Circuit does a fine job...

A: Alien? "Just" alien?

Receptionist: Oh come on! Junk has been getting randomly dumped on Earth or nearabouts for millennia. Word is the universe beyond the Oort Cloud is teeming with life and activity, but we don't get to see it because all the other civilisations are avoiding us.

Lina: And that would be ...why? Frightened of us? Are we too primitive? We could use a hand, squatting this rock... But what about that Translator Wotsit, any clue of its origins? Like, for sure? Sure it's not just some lucky earthly crackpot's doings?

Receptionist: I think it's from some smashed up time machine they cannibalised, 'don't recall what they were calling it though.

A: So, Pan-Solaric Association for the Study of Alternative Forces, just how magicky are we? I mean, the train on a tight-rope into orbit is admittedly surreal but...

Receptionist: I will reproach you this: you're very talkative, and so am I. Indeed were it not for my faultless ability to recover from a digression...

Lina: You're at least two digressions late already! aside Men…

Receptionist: ...We might well have overlooked the important things: you need an inscription form, Nick. Name?

09:54 p.m

Upon rejoining our fellow Nancéens, we walked interminably through a maze of intersecting corridors, from what I could tell arbitrarily taking right or left turns, rising one level now, descending two a little later, always going past the innumerable doors, hatches and other openings, all closed, yes, but often invitingly devoid of locks. No one dared question our guides, two ancient, heavily robed, skyscraping old women in pointy hats. Leading the way, never deigning to look at us, they glided soundlessly forward as if standing on invisible rails.

Within a few minutes of our exiting the Reception Area, the procession was dead silent. Then somebody slipped. The little group of twenty odd teens, middle-aged men and two particularly bewildered twin sisters had been instinctively, unconsciously, inexplicably huddling close together. As Lina and I tumbled into each other's arms, thrashing, and into the heap, it hit me: I wasn't writing, and you my diary were in my hand closed, pen tediously sandwiched between my two longest fingers. Indeed everyone around me was apparently bound within the bounds of conventional human existence. There was no trace in the air of the thick, honey-sweet Artron energy usually saturating the olfactory senses in any grouping of mutants. We had been defanged. Suddenly I could justify the cold sweat turning my hair clingy.

I have a faint suspicion we were purposefully brought to breaking point. When everyone was up off the floor again, were led just around the corner, past a three-way junction and straight to one pair of gigantic wooden doors. Were they really ever that far?

Our guides sidled against the walls either side of us, and one uttered the first sound we would ever hear from them: she shushed at the double doors; something shushed back immediately, and the wood parted gracefully. We were ushered gently beyond.

It was like an ancient Greek theatre: a huge hemicycle of stone benches on a couple dozen levels; the circular Orchestra, the Skene and Proskenion, all sitting directly under a full sky of multicoloured stars, and one traumatically enormous crater-pocked ball of grey, yellow and white rock: our very own Moon. I felt rather than heard the gasping astonishment of my fellows. Fortunately this time no one faltered so much as to fall over.

The place was empty; not a sign of life across the entire Theatron or any parts of the stage. Yet there was undeniably a presence of some unfathomable nature. I caught myself looking over my shoulder at nothing repeatedly; the others were doing it too. Finally someone emerged from the Skene, another ancient lady. She moved swiftly to the centre of the Orchestra. Though you couldn't make out the details of her face, the focus of her gaze as it fixed was glaringly obvious.

"The others will be here shortly," said a thin steely voice, "you should take your seats before they do."

As the party sat itself down obediently, sticking to the upper and farthest benches, I could see that even Lina was satisfied the distant robed figure had been the latest cause of discomfort. In me, the nagging sense of being watched from close behind persisted, and even when the theatre filled and became packed, I couldn't stop spinning around the notion of total exposure: someone could see me inside out, every organ, every cell, every molecule and every atom - every thought, devouring me.

I was vaguely aware of humans stacking up around me. Briefly, while there were still too few talking to cloud my thinking, I was cut short in my circular reflections by a hand on my thigh, and Lina's other arm curling around my shoulder. Her embrace made me relatively calm for several odd minutes. Soon however, the soundscape saturated with the hissing and squealing of thousands of nervous and excitable humanoids at widely varying stages of growth and decay, drowning everything except my awareness of the other, which was consequently enhanced, as if I were locked in a dark room with it, intangible, inescapable entity of nothingness. I broke down sobbing.

"Enough idle talk. I am ready for you."

And there it is folks, Segment #1. Part of the mystery voice's dialog has already been written, so it might come in less than two months. Don't hesitate to point to anything that's too obscure or incomprehensible or whatever, that I might take steps to rectify stuff. And if you do find this particularly toxic, do drop by and let me know why; just don't be nasty, down, vindictive, etc...

The Author has changed the Universal Translator Plot Device from a Telepathic Circuit to a Translation Circuit. We will explain later.