Team Who Decided to Name Us That?
Magic, he could cope with. A dark lord out to kill him, he could cope with. Eight people nicknamed Team Free Will… well… that was pushing it.
Harry deals with the insanity of the Supernatural.
Harry had first met the Team during his first night at Hogwarts. The hat had shouted out Gryffindor and he had been sorted into the house he was going to be in for the rest of his time at the school. His first friend had shortly joined him, and they had sat there, marvelling at the castle.
"Not again, Novak," one of Ron's brothers had leaned over to talk to someone on the other side of Ron. A brown haired kid with amber eyes grinned back at him. "Can't you find your own table?"
Harry noted the green and silver tie on the boy, and then spotted the boys friends, their own ties a rainbow of colours. "You're not in Gryffindor." He said, albeit a bit stupidly.
"Nope," the kid – Novak – popped the 'p'. "Why should I be? Reckless and stupid, that sounds more like those two mutton heads than me!" he jerked his thumb over his shoulder to two other boys, one wearing a yellow tie, short crew cut hair and… Harry frowned, because he was pretty sure that a shirt and jeans were not regulation uniform. Even if there was a black robe draped over the top. The other boy had a blue and bronze tie and longish hair and seemed to stick to the standard uniform more than the yellow and black tied boy.
"So you didn't decide to stand up to Lucifer?" the long-haired one asked Novak, voice calm.
Novak smiled, but didn't answer, glaring at a blank space over Harry's shoulder at being caught out in his own personality.
"Yeah," the other boy laughed. "I thought so." He leaned past another yellow-tied boy and held out his hand to Harry. "Dean Winchester." He smirked, "Nice to meet you."
"Harry Potter," Harry said, before realising that introducing himself around here was probably pointless. "But you probably already knew that."
"Why would we?" a dark haired girl looked up. Her gaze met a sandy-haired boy who unlike his friends, actually had a Gryffindor tie on. "Oh." She muttered. "Right, nice to meet you kid." She clicked her fingers in front of Dean's face. "Concentrate smart-ass. What were you saying about fairies?"
Harry blinked, turning back to Ron with the feeling that he'd just missed some large and complicated point. "That was weird," Ron mumbled through a mouth of food.
"Yeah," Harry agreed.
It would take him a few years to find out just how right he was.
He thought he wouldn't see them much, being from a mix of houses, but he soon found out he was incorrect in that assumption. "They all sit together," a second year called Katie Bell who knew them said. "The teachers tried to tell them to split, but they just don't listen. They were all raised together and have issues interacting with people. They…" she paused.
"They're a little…" Fred (or was it George?) waved his finger around in a circle by his ear. "Cuckoo," he whispered.
"Not that they're bad," the other twin added. "They're nice folks. Just ignore what they jabber on about."
"What is she doing?" Ron was staring at the Ravenclaw table where the dark haired girl snatched up a salt shaker and stalked over to the entrance doors. A bunch of Slytherins had appeared and she moved to stand in front of them, before unscrewing the lid and tipping the salt in front of him.
Everyone was apparently so used to their antics that nobody batted an eyelid at this, except Draco Malfoy whom the salt was poured in front of, and the ghosts who were suspiciously absent. Malfoy just edged around her in a wide berth.
"Told you," Winchester was sniggering, his voice drifting over to the Gryffindor table. "The boy is just a punk-ass kid. Not a fairy."
"But his hair," she hissed. "I'd have to dye mine to get it even vaguely that colour!"
"Yeah, you fight those fairies," Sam mocked and his brother punched him. Harry wondered what the hell they were talking about.
There was a squeal from the entrance hall as Quirrel entered. Upon seeing the pile of salt, he backed away and vanished from view. The group at the Ravenclaw table paused, looking really confused.
"Is he afraid of salt?" the Hufflepuff asked, blue eyes narrowed.
"Maybe he's a fairy," the dark haired girl insisted.
Harry couldn't work out why Winchester and the sandy haired boy found the situation so funny.
"They have this thing about salt," Katie Bell told Harry and Ron. "The twins…"
"Wait…" Ron interrupted. "Twins? Who?"
"The two older Winchester brothers – Sam and Dean."
"But they're not identical," Ron whispered. "When have you ever heard of twins who aren't identical?"
The bushy haired Granger sniffed, leaning forwards to add her own addition to their conversation. "Actually there is such a thing as fraternal twins. It's when two eggs are fertilised by different sperm instead of a single egg which splits."
"What?" Twin A blinked. "I've never heard of that. Muggles maybe, but in magicals, all twins are identical."
"Weird." Twin B whistled.
"Anyway," Katie waved Fred and George away, "We used to have this really boring ghost for a history teacher. Then one night McGonagall catches Sam, Dean and Jo, that's my blonde roommate after they snuck out of the castle to go into the village. That same night, we lost our history teacher. Apparently Binns went up in flames. Gone. They checked out his grave and his bones were covered in salt and burned to a crisp."
Harry winced. "Does that destroy ghosts?"
"So they claim," Katie shrugged. "The teacher sucked, so nobody complained much. They got detention for sneaking out but that was about it."
"They're legends," Fred told the pair. "Crazy, but legendary…"
And for most of Harry's time there, that was the reputation of the self-dubbed 'Team Free Will'.
Nobody quite knew why they called themselves that either.
"I hate spiders," Ron mumbled, staring wide-eyed at the large monsters around them as Harry began trying to talk to Aragog. He used the verb 'trying' because the spider looking at his head like it was a tasty snack was the most off-putting thing he'd ever had to ignore, beyond a dark lord out for his life.
It seemed the spider couldn't ignore that fact forever either, and after telling them nothing that wasn't maddeningly unhelpful, proceeded to let his extended family have a snack. Harry had a moment to wonder how one single male spider multiplied (on its own) to produce more baby killer giant spiders, before Ron had grabbed him, the pair searching for a way out of the spider-webbed clearing.
The approaching giant Acromatulas clicked their pincers threateningly, the noise rustling throughout the clearing like whispers.
"We're going to die…" Ron whimpered. "Follow the spiders… why couldn't it have been follow the butterflies?"
Something sticky splashed down on Harry's face, and he wiped it off, staring in disgust at the mucus that clung to his hand.
There was a clicking noise in his ear and he froze, head swivelling around to see the eight eyed creature hanging from a tree above him.
Harry had a brief moment to contemplate that several giant spiders were going to succeed where a dark lord had failed, before the Acromantula dangling above him shuddered backwards, all eight legs being pulled backwards, as if stung by something.
A moment later there was a loud crash, and something shuddered into the hairy body, causing the legs to twitch frantically and the spider to click ominously.
"Uh… Harry…" Spinning around, the dark haired boy saw yet more spiders advancing on them, but a few were being jolted by something… it was almost as if someone was shooting them with spells…
"Who loaded the rock salt?" someone who wasn't Ron or Harry called out, and there was some more clicking, but metallic, mechanical and then there was another shot, which Harry realised was from a gun.
Whatever the people had been shooting previously had obviously been replaced by something more potent, for now when the shotgun hit the spider creeping towards Ron; it tore half the head away in a splattered, gory mess.
There was a twig cracking, and Harry spun around, wand raised and ready to shout a spell out, when he saw not a spider, but a lanky form spinning a large and lethal looking blade in his hand. The machete spun through the air, cleaving a leg off and then lodging itself into the exoskeleton of another spider where it stayed, refusing to budge.
"Damn it…" the lanky form mumbled, tugging as the spider writhed in its dying throes. Someone pushed past him with a snort.
"Got your sword stuck again Sammy?" Harry blinked, recognising the figure as the loud-mouthed Hufflepuff. He was dressed in jeans and several layers of shirts and jackets, and he too held a machete in his hand. "What are you waiting for kid?" Winchester asked. "Going to stand there or going to run?"
"Run where?" Ron asked, flinching as another spider exploded nearby. Along the tree line the Slytherin Novak looked a little too smug.
"Who taught Gabriel how to make explosives?" the brunette Hufflepuff girl muttered, from where she was shooting missiles out of her wand, impaling the eight legged arachnids.
"What are you doing here?"
"Hunting giant spiders? What does it look like we're doing? Having a f***ing tea party?" Dean paused to spin around and machete another spider.
Behind Winchester, the brother finally managed to pull his machete free of the now dead Acromantula. He spun around, looking for his next prey, only to find that his older brother had slain everything within a two metre radius and the rest were fleeing from the Gryffindor pair with shotguns. "Everyone all right?" he called.
"No," Dean shook his head, shoving Harry and Ron forwards towards the exit to the clearing, and hopefully back to the castle. "I don't get it. This isn't Lord of the Rings. So why are we being attacked by Shelobs?"
"You've read Lord of the Rings?" the youngest Winchester looks amazed, even while his voice dripped with sarcasm.
"Shut up asshole."
"Jerk," Adam, Harry remembered his name from Common Room discussions, snapped back.
Winchester's Hufflepuff male friend appeared blue eyes wide. "Come on," he said to them, "Let's get you out of here." And he led them through the forest, leaving the rest of the Team to straggle behind, checking that all the spiders had actually left.
"That was awesome," Harvelle was saying, her eyes shining.
"That was madness!" Ron whispered to Harry.
"I guess," the other Slytherin, the only one of the group who actually owned a British accent said (Winchester could fake quite a nice one if the situation required it, and seemed to like to mock the teachers with it). "Some people might see it that way, but those two mutton heads see it as a party."
"A chance to unwind," his house mate sauntered past, a bag slung over his shoulder and clinking with vials of liquids which would probably react very violently together, as one of the screaming burning spiders could tell you, had it not already died.
Harry didn't feel particularly sorry for the arachnids which had been about to eat them and the fate they had been given.
Death by Team Free Will… it seemed like an odd way to go.
Still, at least they hadn't needed saving by a car or something, because that would have just been embarrassing.
"Okay kids," Winchester patted them on the shoulders, ignoring Harry's indignant "we're only a year younger than you!" "Off you go, back to bed, and we both agree to not spill to the teachers about this, got it?"
"Spill to the teachers?" Ron glared at them, "About how you wander around the Forbidden Forest killing giant spiders?"
"We've killed worse things than that," the other brother said, amused.
It was only later, that Harry reflected upon that, and realised that never for a second had he doubted that statement.
"The potion will be ready soon," Hermione was whispering to them. "We just need to get a part of the person that we're going to turn into…" she was interrupted by pounding footsteps.
Harry looked over his shoulder as Dean Winchester raced down the corridor, being chased by the brunette Hufflepuff housemate of his.
"Come back here you goddamn smart-aleck! I'll tear out your tongue and stuff it down your nose!" Were just a few examples of the various threats she was shouting at him.
Dean had paused mid-corridor to throw a Bible at her as hard as he could (Harry wondered why Winchester carried a Bible). The Bible caught Masters under the chin, whipping her head back as she practically somersaulted backwards, landing painfully on her face, face to the sky. "I'm gonna kick your ass!" she snapped, struggling to her feet.
"You know this whole tough chick act thing…" Dean spun around to taunt his housemate for a bit, "Is really unbecoming." His voice dropped to mimic hers, "'I'm gonna' bounce you on your ass, I'm gonna' kick your bitch head!' It's so unfeminine!'" he then looked alarmed as she stood up straight and he turned away, laughing and bolted for the end of the corridor, students ducking to get out of the bickering pairs way.
It was a testament to how much Hogwarts accepted the weird Team that nobody even blinked or looked twice at the scene, and the few who wondered what was going on shrugged it off minutes later.
They were probably safer not knowing.
The next day Harry was wondering whether the scene in the corridor was in any way linked to what Novak came up with to help with the Christmas spirit. Following what was apparently a famed trick of the year before Harry had arrived at Hogwarts where Snape was forced to sing in song lyrics, most of the school was now forced to sing in Christmas carols.
And the worst thing was that it didn't end.
It made trying to ask Malfoy if he was the heir of Slytherin very difficult, when all they could do was chorus 'Silent Night' to him in Crabbe and Goyle's deep voices. Eventually they began writing, much to Malfoy's suspicion since he seemed convinced that the pair couldn't write, let along spell, to save their life. Thankfully they got out of there having done nothing more than convince Malfoy that the gorillas were idiots and knowing that the chamber was last opened fifty years ago.
"I wonder if we'd have found out more if we could talk." Ron scrawled on a piece of parchment. Taking a moment to try and read the illegible slant, Harry replied.
Initially he began to sing 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' before closing his mouth and grabbing a quill, mentally cursing Gabriel Novak.
Somewhere in the Hospital Wing, Madame Pomphrey had the unique opportunity to witness a cat girl, purring to the tune of 'O Come O Ye Faithful'.
"He looked better as a ferret," The Slytherin Novak sighed regretfully, slouching in a Gryffindor armchair as if he owned it. He got a few disgusted looks from some die-hard Gryffindors, including Ron, but remained sitting there, Masters (who was the Hufflepuff brunette girl) perched on the arm with Adam sprawled on the floor.
The rest were camping out by the fire, the Hufflepuff Novak and the sole Ravenclaw of the group doing what looked like homework, while the other three listened into conversations.
"Fairy kid," Masters scoffed.
"Hey Harry!" someone called, and he turned, attention distracted. "Figured out how to hear that egg yet?"
Helplessly Harry shrugged, as he joined Hermione and Ron at the last remaining armchair near the fire. Ron moved over, almost sitting on Hermione and she hit him with her book. "They're right you know," she told him, and as happy as Harry was to have both his friends back, he wished they'd stop nagging about the golden thing, still sitting in his trunk. "You really should figure out what it means."
"What what means?" Ron glared at the nosy British Slytherin who really shouldn't be in their common room.
"None of your business," Harry's friend snapped.
"Oh come on," Jo glanced over at them, kind of friendly with them since she was in their house, the times she wasn't running around with the rest of the Team (which was most of the time) in which case they didn't know her. "Bring it down here and we'll help you crack it! Right Adam?"
"No!" Adam shook his head. "You're welcome to be deafened by a golden egg but not me thanks."
"They're our friends!" Jo protested.
Masters laughed, and Harry thought it sounded more like a cackle. "If by friends, you mean someone who'd sooner drop an anvil on them then by all means, help them out."
"You don't mean that!" Jo snapped.
"Find me an anvil and watch me go."
Novak had a considering look on his face which was slightly scary for who knew what he could be planning. "We'll help," he shrugged. "I mean… it's not as if I spent ages talking to mermaids, but I think I can still remember the language."
"What?"
"Mermaids..?" Hermione frowned. "That would… make sense… you can't hear it above ground because it's the wrong medium…"
"Great," the eldest Winchester threw up his hands, "Now they know about the egg, they're happy, Jo's done her good deed of the day and she's happy, and if everyone is happy then I'm happy. Sam, are you happy?"
"Shut up." Sam didn't even look up.
"Well as enlightening as our little problem solving venture is, can we get back to this…?" The other Slytherin waved a piece of lined parchment. On closer examination, Harry realised it was just lined paper, something you could buy from a normal stationary store. They were writing with pens too, and not quills.
Jo rolled her eyes, "Sure thing red-eyes." she consoled him, grabbing a book and looking for something.
Harry wondered why she called him that, if his eyes weren't red, and then forgot about the thought as he began wondering where he could possible listen to an egg underwater.
Throughout the years the Team had become very good at vanishing from view. They skived of Umbridge's lessons like they were free periods, and the twins were neither heard nor seen for a week after their staged fight in Harry's second year. At other awkward moments they would vanish for a week, and once Winchester, the Hufflepuff Novak and the other twin had vanished only to reappear looking like they had been through a blender, but grinning from ear to ear.
In passing Harry had heard mentions of 'five hauntings in five days.' And 'now that was a road trip!' and decided he was better off not knowing.
He had considered asking them to join the DA but the number of eyes the teachers seemed to keep on them made him reconsider, and a brief flash of them, covered in gore and holding machetes and shotguns killing giant spiders told him that they really didn't need his patronising attempts to teach them how to defend themselves, especially not when the twins took every opportunity to spar, even if it was in front of the whole school at a public defence club.
They also had a massive prank war which sent Umbridge into a mental spiral highly likely to result in an aneurism and early death (at least he hoped) and put anything the Weasley twins had ever done to shame. There was a bout of bad luck circling the school, and it wasn't until Harry almost slipped on a brown fluffy object on a keychain when walking down the stairs at the entrance hall that he found out what was causing it.
"Is that a rabbit's foot?" Hermione asked, as he picked it up to examine it.
Harry peered at the brown fluffy object. "I think so. Or a mouldy sock…"
Ron had paused at the sight, eyes wide. "That's… that's really lucky," he breathed. "Wizards have become famous with one of those."
"Really..?" Hermione was sceptical. Why was Harry surprised? "Harry's already famous. It's not like this had dramatically improved his life so far…" she was interrupted by a screech at the staff table where, for the fifth time that month, Umbridge's clothes vanished from her body leaving her pulling the table cloth up to cover herself, food falling off in a loud clatter.
Hiding a smirk Harry pocketed the foot. "Are you sure Hermione?" he asked her, sidling past.
"Coincidence," She sniffed.
The bushy haired Gryffindor said the same when he got a potions essay which was marked fairly, Snape having thought it was a Slytherin's. Then he got a load of points for nothing from the History teacher, and finally he found a bag of sweets on the floor.
"No way..!" Ron moaned, and grabbed the foot from him. He stroked it reverently. "I can't believe this actually works and then you find it."
Harry promptly tripped over a flagstone, bag crashing and from the sound of it, his inks breaking.
"How is that lucky?" Hermione triumphant stalked past, shooting them a smug smile.
"Hey look!" Ron leaned over, "A galleon!"
Eventually realising how the foot worked, and also realising that it had originated from the Team's prank war and been set loose upon the school, Ron got rid of it.
By giving it to Draco Malfoy...
"What is this?" the blonde had sneered, staring at the brown thing Ron had thrown at him ("Think fast Malfoy!"). The red-head turned to run, but promptly tripped and fell, leaving the Slytherins snickering. Harry rolled his eyes, his own spout of bad luck having only just ended with the sweets being a test product of Fred and George's and putting him in the hospital wing.
Later though, when Snape confiscated the object from Malfoy much to the amusement of Team Free Will who were practically rolling around the floor in hysterics, Ron looked a bit happier, despite his green hair from a colour changing charm gone wrong. Malfoy had just had someone spill gravy all over him, and in his struggle to get away had fallen over backwards out of his seat. "They're mental," he said, gesturing at the Team. "But utter geniuses…"
Harry agreed with his friend.
"Are those weird kids still at school?" Sirius had asked him over the Christmas Holidays.
Harry knew exactly who he meant. "The mixed house group?" he confirmed. "Yeah, and just as…" he circled his index finger by his head, "They're not that bad though," he shrugged. "If you get past their whole crazy talk, they're actually pretty normal."
Sirius stared at him for a long moment. "I ran across them once." He admitted, finally. "I was in the Forbidden Forest and the siblings were there, going on about werewolf patrols or something. One of them spotted me… he had a green tie…"
"Novak," Harry sighed, "He's an annoying guy."
"Spotted me out of deep shadows," Sirius continued. "The others gave me funny looks and started talking about 'black dogs'. They probably thought I was a grim, but then the girl with blonde hair pulled out some food for me."
"Poor stray mutt," Harry grinned.
"Shut up squirt. That wasn't the weird bit," his godfather shook his head, "The odd bit was when the younger… Winchester isn't it? He looked at me and then told the others not to scare the escaped convict. It was as if they knew I was human and not a dog, but they didn't seem to care."
"Well if the rumours have anything to believe, then apparently the Novaks have older brothers in prison," Harry shrugged. "Might be why they're so close, that group. They barely ever talk to anyone else. Luna gets along with them but that's to be expected."
"Remus mentioned that he'd smelt them out in the forest on a full moon and that they knew he was a werewolf. He caught one of them with a silver knife but the kid did nothing more than nick his finger and then apologise, before racing off to tell his friends."
"Let me guess," Harry sighed. "Winchester."
"One of them," Sirius smiled, "They're worse than the twins."
"I don't think anybody could be worse than Fred or George."
"I don't know. Your father and I could give them a run for their money. And from what I hear one of the Novaks is pretty damn sneaky. They're good kids though," Sirius patted him on the shoulder. "You can't go wrong with friends like those who'd stand with you to the death… hell the way those kids talked probably after death too. I'm glad you've got Ron and Hermione to help you out."
Harry was too. He didn't know where he'd be without his friends.
The summer after his fifth year was the best one yet. Sirius's name had been cleared, the ministry jumping to whatever Dumbledore demanded with vigour and even though Harry was unable to visit Sirius for several weeks, it was something to look forward to. Sirius was the happiest Harry had seen him in a long time, and eventually admitted to Harry that he thought he could produce a hundred patronus' with the memory of Novak squashing his cousin with an anvil.
Harry had sobered him with the reminder that if the scrawny seventeen year old hadn't been there, Sirius would probably not be here either, and the pair got to work cleaning the house, grateful for what they had.
Mentioning Novak's name seemed to almost be a curse, for it was Novak who quite literally stumbled upon Harry, petrified and lying underneath his own invisibility cloak. The Slytherin was having an engaging conversation with Winchester about sexy doctors or something weird, before tripping over Harry.
The cloak slid off him and Harry wished he could move. Then again if he could move, he'd be dying of embarrassment.
"And I thought we got into pickles," the younger twin, who seemed to have grown over the summer and was now massively tall, leaned down to tap his wand against Harry, the petrification dissolving with a shiver. Another tap and his nose was fixed, albeit, his face still bloody.
"You do," the nicer Hufflepuff (Harry should really learn their names) said, gruffly. "The amount of times I had to rescue you from being pinned to the wall by demons or tied up by monsters."
"I prefer being tied up," Winchester admitted. "Because then at least when the suckers go down you don't drop to the floor like a sack of bricks."
"Kinky huh...?" Novak waggled his eyebrows. "Never thought you were one for bondage Dean-o…"
"Shut up," Winchester cuffed the Slytherin, as his twin helped Harry to his feet.
"You good?" the Ravenclaw asked.
Harry nodded. "Thanks. Uh… sorry about that…" he leaned down for his cloak but the Hufflepuff Novak had already picked it up, running his fingers through it.
"That is a beautiful cloak," the blue-eyed kid said, handing it back, "You should look after it. Death would not be happy if you lost it."
Harry frowned. "What?"
Winchester coughed. "Death can't complain. He's got his scythe back from Alistair or Crowley or whatever demon had it, he's got his ring, he's got his fast food…"
"Harry!" The teenager spotted his rescue from the four weird Team members in the form of a bubblegum haired Nymphadora Tonks. "There you are! And who are your friends...?"
"No-one…" Novak grinned, "We were just…uh…"
"Looking for the bathroom..."
Ravenclaw Winchester's head hits his palm. "Dean, what did I tell you about teaching Cass how to lie?"
"Humans lie when they want something," the Hufflepuff… Cass… if that was his name, Harry wasn't sure what it was short for, said.
The other three rolled their eyes. Harry wondered where the other half of the group had got to.
"Well…" Tonks looked a bit uncomfortable, "Enough hanging about – they want to send the train off. Come on – let's get on up to the castle."
"Yeah, come on," Winchester… Dean… Harry corrects himself, grabbed his twin's shoulders, steering him along the carriage. "Cursed object this-a-way."
Harry and Tonks watched them go.
"Do you think they need help getting up to the castle?" Tonks asked, frowning. "Because if those are the kids who were at the Ministry with you…
"No," Harry shook his head. "I think if any Death Eaters met them, they'd be running the other way, regardless of whether one of them cast a reversing charm on them or not."
"Reversing charm… Gotta' remember that one."
"Where's the ring?" Harry frowned, as Dumbledore dropped the diary on the table. They'd been talking about Horcruxes, and how Dumbledore thought the ring, the snake, the cup, the diary, the locket and something of Gryffindor or Ravenclaw had been made into a horcrux.
Until recently, the ring had been on Dumbledore's withering hand, but now it was gone.
The old man sighed. "It encountered some curiosity from several students in their final year who I believe call themselves 'Team Free Will'."
"Oh." Harry said, as if that explained it all. Maybe in some ways it did.
"Yes," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "They promised to get it back to me, and Gabriel Novak left me with a rather nice bag of sweets as compensation."
"The sweets weren't…" Harry paused, not wanting to accuse another student of drugging sweets for the Headmaster.
"No my boy... They were just candy. I understand the group is a littler eccentric…"
Try as he could Harry couldn't manage to stifle the laugh.
The Headmaster sighed. "In their first year here, we tried to get them some help," he admitted with weariness, "To aid with their delusions. Nothing worked and the children were innocent. Odd beliefs, yes, but they posed no harm to other students."
"They think demons and angels are real." Harry couldn't stop himself from saying.
Adjusting his glasses, Dumbledore nodded. "They also believe in vengeful ghosts and monsters. Many of which, can be found in your Care of Magical Creatures textbook and are listed as dangerous. It is a sad occurrence, that the Ministry Department which deals with dangerous creatures has been reduced to chasing after harmless Hippogriffs, leaving the threatening creatures to roam, often unchecked." He paused for a moment, "Naturally, muggles eventually found out about them, often through tragic events. Many then donate the rest of their lives to hunting down beasts like the ones which destroy their lives."
"Muggles know about magic?" Harry looked alarmed.
"They know about the beasts, my dear boy. They call themselves hunters, and hunt down all manner of creatures. Not without reason, they often follow body trails to their 'hunt' as they call it. I did a little research into the 'Team's' parents. Many of them are adopted into that little family group, and the two adults – a Robert Singer and Ellen Harvelle – are well known in the British, and American hunting community."
"So… did they raise the kids to be these… hunters too?" Harry frowned.
Dumbledore spread his hands out. "And there is the question. I have my theories. It is highly likely that yes, they did. Combined with traumatic experiences from their childhoods, losing parents, family members, the way they grew up… it is little wonder they are as sane as they are."
"Are they dangerous?" Harry dared asked. "When they were eleven they can't have been too scary, but that Ravenclaw had one larger growth spurt. And the teachers keep finding weapons on them… Winchester has this knife he never seems to lose."
"Oh Harry," Dumbledore sighed. "Everyone can be dangerous if they choose to be. And yes, that group is dangerous. But it doesn't mean that they pose a threat. Not if they act with the right intentions."
Looking back, Harry wondered if the whole thing with the Boggart and its multiple forms, the black eyed man who had appeared and then slumped over and remembered nothing later, was all just one elaborate prank of Novaks.
But there had been genuine emotion in the twin's eyes as the boggart jumped from form to form. From a brunette woman with flashing black eyes to a blonde haired man whose head snapped back into gaping teeth, black ink spilling from his neck. It took more than ten years of a childhood hunting monsters and seven years teaching at a magic school to produce nightmares like the ones that had appeared that day.
No wonder the pair had taken a week long holiday in what Harry later heard was a small room just off the Astronomy Tower.
The Team had seemed shifty enough after that, although many people chalked it down to the war. Harry had a private bet going with Ron that they were going to bolt, and he was proved right after the black eyed 'demon' appeared.
Most of the school was still unwilling to admit to what the creature was. The man was a muggle whose last memory was walking down the street and seeing black smoke shove itself down his throat. The black eyed 'Nicor' who had strolled in as if he owned the place had the same evil feel that Voldemort did, right up until the moment he spotted the Team.
It was like Voldemort spotting Dumbledore at that Atrium the end of his fifth year.
Nobody could honestly say they were surprised that the Team didn't appear for breakfast the next morning. No teachers knew what had happened to them… they had just… vanished… into thin air…
Harry remembered that the one… Castiel… had teleported right behind the black eyed 'demon' but Hermione had snorted and quoted Hogwarts a History about the Apparating wards. He supposed it must have been a trick of the light – he must have missed the guy move or something.
All in all, Hogwarts was glad to see the back of them, including one Harry Potter (although sometimes they seemed to understand him and he missed that at the very least).
The next year he was too busy to worry about them, but when everything was finished and he was lying in his bed, he did wonder what had become of them.
The war was done and over and he could look to the future. Why worry about some kids who had probably skedaddled back to America?
It wasn't like anybody else in the wizarding world cared. A few Death Eaters had surrendered after seeing someone use the 'bunny smiting' spell Novak had invented, but beyond that, it was another thing forgotten about.
These were the people who had a teacher murdered one year, a giant snake patrolling the school the next, an escaped convict hanging around and still thought the school was safe enough to host an international sporting event.
According to Luna they still wrote to her. "Well Sam does at least," she sighed. "He's very nice like that."
"You're expecting a letter soon?" Harry frowned, looking around for a non-existent owl.
"Yes," Luna nodded. "The owl only brings a letter once every six months, but she takes my replies whenever I need her to. It's because they're ahead and if Sam wrote regularly we'd never catch up to each other. I think the owl is called Zeppelin Dean named her after a muggle band."
"That's nice," Harry said, unsure what to say.
"Very. But then again, Gabriel sends it through time and as an archangel he's very precise."
Harry sighed at the sudden swings in the conversation as Luna held out her hand and a brown tawny owl landed on it. Harry jolted eyes wide at the owl that had appeared out of nowhere. "Where did that come from?"
"She flies through time," Luna pulled off the letter, "She's very good like that, aren't you Zep?" She stroked the owl's plumage as she hopped to Luna's shoulder and settled down. The blonde girl opened the letter. "Shall I read it out loud?" she asked.
"Uh… sure," Harry nodded.
"Dear Luna," she began to read. "We're sorry about the war and understand how hard it must have been for you. We're not trying to make it seem easy, but in comparison to our own experiences you had it lucky. Tell Harry that he did a great job.
We're all well here. Crowley and Meg have this thing set up where they jointly run Hell. It was working fine until this new demon, called Abaddon showed up. Apparently she's a knight of hell, and nobody is really sure what she wants. Dean and I managed to cut off her head for a bit, but we had to stitch it back on for a bit and she used to opportunity to escape.
We met our grandfather. How odd is that? We're not the only Winchesters time travelling around here. Abaddon followed him through though and killed him. He left us a legacy though. It turns out that we're not just Campbell's, hunters to the bone, but we're Winchesters, who are scholars apparently. I finally feel like I've got somewhere I belong, and something we can work from.
We've got a new base. The place is massive. We found out how to cure a demon and Crowley and Meg have been sending their incompetent minions to be cured and sent to Heaven. So life's interesting here. I haven't heard from Gabriel for a while, but Dean woke up as a girl last month and I think he had something to do with it. Thankfully Dean's back to his usually gender, because believe me; he was bad enough as normal without PMS-ing on me.
Cass was trying to help restructure Heaven, but he was tricked by this angel. It wasn't pretty, and we're still dealing with the aftermath. There's a lot of fallout from that, and Cass lost his grace meaning that he's human. It kind of sucks, but we'll come through. We always do.
Adam and Jo are hunting together. Adam's become this sort of hunter-doctor treating Jo after hunts and doing the research. He still doesn't trust her to hunt alone, and even though it's not his thing he goes grave digging with her every time.
We've got some new friends too. There this kid from Advanced Placement called Kevin Trann who is our new Prophet of the Lord. He's been translating these tablets for us, which contain the word of God. We found a Leviathan one, which told us how to kill them, although it's a bit pointless now. There was a demon one, with instructions on how to close the gates of hell, but once Meg and Crowley heard about them it mysteriously vanished from our possession. Kevin also took an extended break to translate that for them. Poor kid… He's with us now working on the angel tablet, so we'll see what it says soon enough. Maybe it tells us how to fix Heaven? Who knows?
Dean has two new friends. Well… he only has one now. One was a vampire he met when he was wandering around Purgatory on the Bobby rescue mission. The vamp, Benny, decided he actually liked it there and went back. The other is this angel, called Ezekiel, who I really want to like and trust, but don't think we can risk it. Or maybe I'm just paranoid after the whole Ruby thing.
You've heard about Charlie. She keeps visiting, and I think she and Meg are secretly trying to get Cass and Dean together. I don't know whether to support them or just try and ignore it. Cass has enough stuff to worry about now and Dean feels guilty enough as it is.
So anyway, that's enough from me. How are you? How is your family? Your friends? Give Harry and his friends a sympathetic congratulation from us. We've read the books. Thanks for not mentioning us. There was some quite violent editing, but I've had enough of being a fictional character.
Hope you're all well!
Sam Winchester
May 2013"
"2013?" Harry asked.
"That's their time," Luna shrugged. "Gabriel sends the owl through time. Eventually I'll catch up and actually meet them properly. They're just waiting for that time. Or maybe they don't have to wait, since, y'know… there's already a me there." She smiled serenely and Harry just nodded slowly in agreement.
"And books…" Harry mentally filtered out all the angel demon hell heaven stuff. "What books?"
"Oh!" Luna brightened, pulling out a sheaf of papers. "Here! I got a publishing contract, if you tell me your story, I write it, and then we publish it as books for children! Apparently Sam says they're really popular. They make them into films."
Harry stared at the papers with mixed confusion, excitement and dismay.
Just when he thought Team Free Will (seriously… why were they called that?) couldn't mess up his life any further.
October 2013 - I'm sorry for the Dark Angel quotes in there. That is if you can even spot them.
This was going to be the last chapter, but my friend was texting me with ideas so I'll probably make up another one with bits and pieces for you guys, because you are simply that awesome. I'm serious - I would never have written this 60,000 odd story without all your reviews in this time! So thank you!
Enjoy
~ Eclipse
