Disclaimer: Do you own Harry Potter and Fable ? If so, could you pretty please give them to me ?

Chapter III: Not in Kansas anymore

In which Hermione is PMSing, Neville is exploring, and Percy gets beaten up. Again.

Two months after their arrival, the three wizards somewhat got used to the Hero's Guild's lifestyle. Well , two of them anyways.

Hermione Granger was not a happy camper. Once the initial hype of being thrown headfirst in her dreamed medieval fantasy world passed, she was quickly introduced to the problems that living in a medieval era entailed. Namely, hygiene. No plumbery, meant no toilets, no hot showers and no washing her teeth three times a day, which was utterly revolting. Neville and Percy didn't really see the problem, since they knew charms to get around that, even if in the prefect's case, he had to use Neville's father's wand since his was broken, but still, if she couldn't feel the water cleaning her, Hermione would feel dirty, and she didn't like feeling dirty. At. All.

Worse, even , was the fact that this morning she woke up feeling wet , her abdomen killing her and saw blood in her bed flowing from her nether regions. Her scream woke her roommates up (Yes, she shared rooms with Neville and Percy because those people didn't see what was wrong with leaving people of the opposite sex room together!), Percy realized the situation quickly, bless his soul, since his sister was apparently on the precocious side, and was taught the charms to deal with it by his mother. She didn't get why Neville was looking at him with pity in his eyes, but a nasty glare from her kept him from saying anything. Her best friend he might be , but if he was standing between her and the pain killing spell the older boy was casting on her, she'd show no mercy. Once the incident was dealt with, the three of them got dressed in scratchy, basic acolyte clothes and out to tu common hall to eat an very unhealthy breakfast made of grease,meat and more grease. According to the hooded woman accompanying them, they would need the energy, and there were enough apple trees, berry bushes and the likes to eat fruit if they felt peckish during their exercises. Percy called out softly to her and showed her that Theresa was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. If the reverent stares and open mouths she got were any indication, that woman was famous and widely respected by even heroes.

Of course, Hermione read as much as she could about The Guildmaster and Theresa.

Weaver, Guildmaster of the Heroes' guild was by far the world's most powerful will user, said to be able to raze acity in one spell! He was not a Light hero, nor a Dark one, prefering to favour balance and equality, even in the guild teachings, letting the apprentices choose their ways, even if he had to fight for it. which he did, for the dirigeants of Oakvale and Bowerstone wanted to outlaw teaching those that could turn towards the Dark. as a symbol of his will, he wore the emblem of the guild, Skorm and Avo united tatooed to his upper forehead.

Right after him, was Theresa, the blind seeress, also a powerful will user, able to see the future in her dreams despite her lack of eyes. Not much was known about her, apparently she'd been kidnapped and raised by bandits, which explained her... agressive clothing, and was the last living heiress of Albion's royal line.

Theresa was a slavedriver. The fact you managed to survive one of her training sessions meant she could push you even harder the next one. Percy was the one she pushed the hardest, because contrarily to the intellectual image he usually projected, he did practice to survive the Weasley Quidditch Matches, which were more akin to an airborne free for all than to a simple match. According to Theresa, he was more of a skill type than a will type and she told him quite bluntly that most of the higher tier spells would remain inaccessible to him, no matter how much he worked, so he should stop losing time trying to stall and come run with them or she'd show him why bandits were quivering in fear when hearing her name.

She was scary like that.

Sighing in contentment, Hermione was currently curled up in a comfortable chair, in front of a roaring fire with a massive tome of magic theory sitting on her crossed legs. One positive point in this was that once you became a teenager, they trusted you to be responsible with what you read, so no restricted area in the library. She looked at the window and estimated it was near midday. She'd have to go look for Neville, he probably got lost again and Percy was currently tied up , literally, as Theresa was teaching him to undo ropes and dodge a fatal blow while doing so. Luckily enough, she only used a wooden sword, but the pain she inflicted was a good motivator for the redhead to get the hell away as soon as possible. After stretching like a cat, she got up, put her book back to its place, got her wand and decided to visit Percy first, she was almost due to another dose of painkillers, Neville could probably wait a bit anyways.

Neville was currently in the guild woods, a bag of herbs in one hand, collecting medicinal plants and apples for the servants. Since Hermione and him got the day off for Theresa to focus on getting Percy to acceptable levels of skill, he decided to go around, to map the place. While he was vertically challenged, he knew how to read a map, since there was none, he'd have to do it himself. Adaptating to the Albionese life wasn't as hard as he thought it would, their customs and the purebloods' being remarkably alike, save for the latter to be much more focused on magic. Training was a bit harder, but another nice surprise was that his habit of looking over his shoulder and instincts, honed by years of life and death situation, allowed him to escape their teacher, leaving the two others to their fate. The problem was that Theresa was so satisfied that she gave him off to another teacher today, since apparently, he was a 'strength type'. He knew he wasn't really archmage material, but it still stung. Well, at least someone was willing to teach him.

Thunder, his new teacher, was a retired behemoth of a man, almost twice the size of the average human, with enough muscle to give a troll a pause. His personality was... special. A bit overbearing, as arrogant as one could be, but still good natured enough to correct him somewhat nicely. The young pureblood rubbed his shoulder, wincing. His teacher really didn't know his strength and dislocated said shoulder while trying to pat it to congratulate him for successfully beheading the dummy with his stick. Neville never knew he could fly that high.

The man gave him a day off to heal after being chewed out by the blind woman, who decided she'd still be in charge for his training after all.

He heard a buzzing sound and saw that he was surrounded. The creatures' beady black eyes were looking at their prey malevolently, and startead approaching. Neville gulped, vastly outnumbered, and lifted his training stick with renewed determination. The boy and them looked at eachother for a moment, then they attacked.

Neville smashed the first one's head with a horizontal slash and ducked to avoid the second one, who was attacking from above. Two others lunged and he had to roll out of the way. Deciding that being alone against many allowed him to play dirty, he threw a fistful of dirt at them, destabilizing them long enough for the boy to bring down his stick with all his weight, breaking their backs. He then tripped because of his loss of balance and fell, the weird, moving feeling on his bottom letting him know where was his fourth assaillant. He turned his head , disgusted and destroyed its head with his stick as it couldn't move. Breathing loudly, he looked around and found nothing. He was about to gather his things and go back when the brushes moved, another wave of his opponents slowly getting out into view. Narrowing his eyes, the boy let his bag delicately on the ground, before taking a stance and narrowing his eyes in concentration.

No way he'd let those damned beetles the fruit of hours of intensive foraging! That nice lady promised him a blueberry pie in exchange of those apples!

Five waves of beetles later, Neville was sore, covered in dirt and bruises where the pests got him, but his precious apples were still intact. He considered that was a victory in itself and stiffened as he heard leaves ruffling at his left. Seriously annoyed, he approached the brush and lifted his stick ofer his head, before bringing it down.

No , he didn't scream like a girl when an armored arm suddenly got out of the bush with a snakelike speed, snapping the stick in its middle when catching it. The arm let go of the pitiful remains of the deceased stick and Theresa appeared, looking as stoic as ever, followed by a half dead prefect. Neville blinked, trying to understand what just happened. The blind woman lifted Neville's bag and slung it over her shoulder, her boots crushing the beetles' corpses with a sickening noise.

"Good job with the beetles, they can be a nuisance if left alone. Though their corpses make a good fertilizer and their wings are one of the components of mana potions, but that's a lesson for another time. It's dinner time, let's go."

While Percy was too tired to do anything but follow the woman, Neville was horrified.

Even here, potions still hounded him!

After a detour to the servant's quarters, the group met with Hermione, who was eyeing the comatose redhead irritably, giving him her wand , then putting her hand on her hip and tapping her foot. It took Percy three tries to get it right before he fell head first in his plate. Neville tried to lift it as delicately as possible, but the older boy was too heavy and fell on him. Thunder, who was eating nearby took pity on him and accompanied the children to their bedroom, the inconscious one under his arm. After promising poor Neville to prepare some strength building exercises and dropping Percy in his bed, the dark skinned man went away, satisfied to have done a good deed.

The following day, the prefect had decided to teach them all he could about their world's magic, so that they would hopefully not be too behind when they got back. While Neville followed it dutifully, Hermione seemed strangely sullen during the lesson. Yet again, Hermione had been in a bad mood all this week, the redhead told the younger boy to leave it alone, and that she'd be back to normal soon enough. They couldn't do much though, because one hour in, their teacher found them, confiscated their wands and dragged the oldest to the archery training grounds, leaving the younger ones to Thunder's tender mercies.

Percy was currently savouring the guildmaster's surprise, expressed by his raised eyebrow. While the Weasleys weren't a noble family, like the Blacks or Longbottoms, and thus he didn't have to go through the sword lessons, he did know his archery.

Not that anyone home knew of that.

You see, Molly Weasley always had problems to keep the twins in line, so it often fell to Percy to help her. Because of that , Percy started to act more mature than he really was to do his assigned job correctly. the downside of it, was that his younger brothers decided he was to be their training dummy for everything, from pranks to aim with a bludger.

Of course, Percy couldn't get back at them magically for obvious reasons, and couldn't be seen getting back at them, lest he upset his mother, so he had to think for weeks on a solution, and finally found it. It took him years to learn how to use it, but after he hit twelve, after the first snows, Percy Weasley sat in a tree, bow and quiver at the ready, the arrows having been changed in the favour of simple straight sticks, waiting for his victims to appear.

Soon enough, the pests took off and started playing a game of two, and Percy struck. times after times, his sticks collided with the brooms, making the boys fall into the snow, again and again. Even to this day, they thought that particular spot in the backyard was home to a vicious tribe of bowtruckles and tried to catch them to avenge their bruised honor and sore bottoms. Bill caught him in action, but he merely laughed it off and ruffled his hair before telling the twins he didn't see anything, and if Charlie knew, he didn't say.

He should have known. He really should have known.

After his minute of glory, of beating the previous record, no one told him whose it was, Theresa decided tomake him pass another test. In which he had to dodge his sadist of a teacher's lightning bolts while trying to land an arrow on her. which was pretty hard since she could predict his every move. He didn't last ten seconds.

As he lay on his bed, still slightly electrified, Percy sighed, missing the nice, easy times back home, he really couldn't catch a break , could he ? He turned around , put his head on his arm, using it like a pillow and blinked away the tears that crept up in his eyes. He wanted to go home.

A.N.: Poor Percy, I turned him in a piñata, but it's for the sake of the plot!

I did take those characters because their thinking is different after all ~

If you want to comment about something off or don't understand something, review and I'll answer, though I can't go much deeper without spoiling ~

Or can I ?