Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling; various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. This story is also based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'Supernatural'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

A/N: Okay, so I still have after-images of Thanksgiving on the brain, hence the first scene. Besides, I got to write a line I've always wanted to include in a story. What line? Here's a hint: it's about IHOP.

Twice is Circumstance

10:10 am, October 14, 2007
Singer Salvage Yard
Outside Pierre, South Dakota

Breakfast. Home-cooked honest-to-God breakfast. With muffins and bacon and sausage and ham and, okay so the fried tomatoes, mushrooms, and peppers were a little weird, but who cared? There were two types of pancakes – blueberry and regular – and four flavors of syrup, powdered sugar, and… Was that marmalade? Toast dripping with real butter. A massive bowlful of strawberries and sliced peaches and blueberries swimming in thick cream. Mounds of fluffy scrambled eggs topped with melted cheddar. A plate of scones and a platter of hash browns. The air thick with sugar and grease and yeast and the smell of strong coffee and the lighter taint of something vaguely tea-like.

Sam didn't normally think with his stomach – that was more of a Dean-thing – but he honestly agreed with his stomach's initial assessment: Heaven. His second coherent thought of the morning was Who robbed the IHOP? and then someone put a slightly chipped coffee mug in his hands and the thought turned to Yeah, definitely heaven. After some of the blessedly strong liquid caffeine – and Dean had to have been the one to put the mug together, it had just the right amounts of cream and sugar – had managed to trip the 'awake' button in his mind, Sam looked around. It was a somewhat surreal sight. I don't think Bobby's kitchen has ever seen this much food. There was enough laid out on the table to feed a small army – or to actually sate Dean, whichever came first.

Harry noticed the flicker of intelligence return to Sam's sleep-addled eyes and handed him a plate and a fork. "Tuck in, before the warming charms wear off."

Sam didn't need to be told twice. He snagged some ham, three blueberry pancakes, and a couple of sausages. In the manner of all men who spend far too long on the road eating whatever could be snagged from a drive-thru or nuked half to death in a mini-mart, he wolfed down the first few bites. After realizing that it was far tastier than anything else could remember at the moment, he slowed down and actually chewed. There was an underlying flavor to everything and somehow, Sam just knew there wouldn't be the remains of a box-mix or an empty can to be found in the trash. If pressed, Sam might have labeled the flavor as 'homey', but then again, maybe not. It wasn't as though he had a lifetime of home-cooked meals sense-memory to draw on. He just knew that whatever that underlying taste was, he liked it; some weird-but-not subtlety that might have just been a barely-perceptible lack of chemical preservatives. He cast a questioning glance at his brother, who shrugged and nodded in Harry's direction. "You did this?" he asked the shorter Hunter, blatant surprise etched in his expression.

Harry swallowed a bite of scone and washed it down with a sip of coffee. "I just got sick of take-out and donuts. Figured since I was in the same place as a kitchen at the same time as a meal, I'd make something that didn't taste of diesel or smoke and that had a bit more flavor than cheese and crackers." He grinned, "I'm probably the only person on the planet who would rather eat his own cooking than go to a restaurant if given half a chance."

Sam, whose cooking abilities were somewhat limited to the fact that he knew the best microwave settings for TV dinners versus frozen pizza and the fact that he could make ramen in a coffee pot, was a little taken aback. It wasn't all that often one came across a Hunter who could cook – barbecue, yes, actually cook on a stove, no. In fact, in a life of weird, this has to be the weirdest thing ever. Then his gaze landed on Bobby's gas range in the corner. Strike that – that is the weirdest thing ever. I didn't know the stove was supposed to be white.

A comfortable silence descended on the kitchen, interrupted only by a 'pass the toast' here and an 'any muffins left' there, and the soft clink of silverware on plates and punctuated by an occasional belch. A minor war between Remus and Bobby broke out over the last sausage link, but Harry broke it up by handing the werewolf the last three strips of crunchy bacon. By the time Sam scooped the last of the fruit-and-cream out of the big bowl, his initial assessment of the food being not just heavenly but excessive had been proved patiently false. Five single men who, for all intents and purposes, lived on take-out and beer could and would demolish enough food to sustain a third-world country for a week when faced with the option. Especially if it had literally been years since their last home-cooked meals.

"Damn, Harry," Bobby said, pushing his plate away, "if you repay sleepin' on that lumpy old sofa with this, it kinda makes me wish I'd've given ya the spare bedroom."

Without missing a beat, Harry replied, "No, this was just payment in advance for what I'm going to do to your fireplace."

"What?"

Harry smiled, "Don't worry – who knows? You might like the changes. Firstly, though… Dean? Phone?"

Dean tossed Harry his cell, "Who're ya calling?"

"Leanne," Harry said, scrolling through Dean's list of contacts. "Remus? You wanna clean the mess up?" Harry hit the send button and wandered out the back door.

"What's he gonna do to my fireplace?" Bobby was still stuck a couple of sentences behind in the conversation, and Sam really couldn't blame him. He was feeling a little sluggish from all the food, too.

Remus retrieved his wand and started banishing crumbs and the sticky remains of syrup. "Just a guess, but I'd wager he's planning on connecting it to the Floo Network. To do that, he'll need to make it somewhat bigger than it currently is. Don't fret too much about it, it won't damage the structural integrity of the house any."

"What's a Floo network?" Dean asked.

"It's something of a cross between a telephone and a dedicated multi-destinational portkey," Remus moved on from the crumbs and syrup to the dishes themselves, levitating them to the sink. "You can use it solely for communication or you can use it for travel. It requires that there be another fireplace connected to the network on the receiving end. In either case, the fireplace in your lounge will need to be made somewhat larger. As it is, I don't think even Harry could climb into it without trouble."

Bobby's eyes narrowed in thought, "A few questions. First, isn't climbing into fire generally a bad idea?"

Remus chuckled, "Yes. However, the fire in an active floo won't burn. Tickles a little if you linger too long, but it doesn't burn."

"How do you keep people from just marching through whenever they want?"

"A floo can be disconnected from the network, rather like unplugging a telephone. A call can't go through if there's nothing there with which to connect," Remus hit the stack of dishes with a couple of heavy-duty cleaning charms before he began putting them back into the cupboard above the sink.

"Can anyone use them or is it just a wizard-thing?"

"It takes a wizard to set the connection up, but a floo can be used by anyone who knows how," Remus replied, putting away the last of the plates and turning his attention to the silverware.

At that moment, Harry came back into the kitchen. He tossed the cell back to Dean, then turned to Remus. "Hit me."

"Pardon?"

"I said, 'hit me'."

"Why?"

Harry sighed, "Because I'm a bloody idiot. I told Leanne what we were going to do, and she's trying to talk me into accepting a fucking contingent of the USMF. I should bloody well know fucking better than to tell her the truth beforehand."

"'USMF'?" Sam asked.

"United States Mage Force – the magical branch of the US military," Remus explained. "You do realize, Harry, that Albus tried to gain USMF support the first two times we went through this, don't you?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Remus, the absolute last fucking thing we need this time around is a bunch of trigger-happy Yanks," he grimaced a little, suddenly remembering where he was. "Sorry, no offense," he said to Dean, Sam, and Bobby.

"None taken," Sam replied.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, "If we do it right, I've already got all the back-up I'll need."

"It wouldn't hurt to request that they be kept on alert, though – just in case," Remus returned to the table and absently refilled his mug with tea.

"I'll take it under advisement. I don't think it's a particularly sound idea. I plan on heading back without letting anyone – aside from Minerva – know. And I'm only telling her because we need that bottle."

2:32 pm, October 14, 2007
Singer Salvage Yard
Outside Pierre, South Dakota

While Remus and Harry did odd… things to his fireplace, Dean and Sam dragged Bobby outside to show the older Hunter a new Deanvention™. Specifically, Dean's new handgun. He'd seen it briefly before, but hadn't known what to make of it and more pressing issues had kept him from asking. Now, though, the two Winchesters and Bobby were putting the new weapon through its paces. The three of them discovered that the energy burst the gun put out spiked off the charts on an EMF and created a sound that hovered on the most extreme upper edge of hearing on EVP. The bolt could blast a hole three feet wide and a full foot deep in the ground, apparently vaporized small projectiles, and put very large holes in bigger ones. An accidental appearance of a crow in the wrong place at the wrong time showed that the gun's effect on living things didn't change much, leaving only the faint smell of charred feathers lingering in the air.

They fired the gun nearly a hundred times before they figured that it probably didn't need 'reloading'.

Bobby asked how Dean had constructed it which had lead to Dean walking Bobby and Sam through the process, using the last of the materials he'd ordered in Louisiana to make three more of the guns. While the other two were busy loading clips with bullet-sized polished pieces of smoky quartz and wedging bars of cobalt around them, Dean recalled that clear quartz was supposedly used for healing. After seeing what the gun could do, it made him wonder what would happen if he switched out clear quartz for the smoky and if he would have to use a different wood for the dowel. Not in a gun, though, he thought and almost laughed out loud at the mental picture he had of walking up to a hurt someone and aiming a gun at them, 'Hold still and let me heal you'. "Flashlight, maybe…" he muttered.

"What?" Sam asked, looking up from what he was doing.

Dean shook his head, "Nothing. After you're done with this part, you need to melt the cobalt down inside the clip."

By the time Bobby, Dean, and Sam had finished crafting the three new guns, Harry and Remus were finished working their mojo on the fireplace and everyone was ready to take a break, even if they were all still working on breakfast and weren't particularly hungry. Beers were passed around and everyone found places to perch or stretch out in the lounge. It had been chilly and raining off-and-on all day. Bobby's fireplace had been expanded to take up most of the wall and gave off a pleasant amount of heat.

"Well, that part's done," Harry sighed, focused on the flames in the hearth, sitting on the floor with his back leaning against the sofa. "The next step would be to run a test-floo, just to make sure it's working properly."

"Later," Remus replied from the opposite end of the couch, looking almost as weary as Harry.

"Remus?" Dean asked from where he was half-sitting on the arm of the sofa, next to Sam and above Harry.

"Hmm?"

"How come what I did with my gun hadn't been done before? 'Cause, well… It just seems so simple."

Remus closed his eyes, "I'm not entirely sure. Mostly, it has to do with the fact that only someone who was familiar with muggle firearms and how environmental magic worked would even think of it. Part of the reason, I'm sure, is that cobalt's function with regards to magic was only discovered in the early 1930s, and before wizardkind could do much with the knowledge, we had to deal with the muggle war with Hitler and our own problems with a Dark wizard by the name of Grindelwald. We managed to get wireless sets figured out before Voldemort became a problem. As far as other countries are concerned, I think the US and most of the Far East were too busy tinkering with how magic and computer technology interacted to do something as low-tech as your gun."

"Knowledge meets opportunity just hadn't happened, in other words."

Remus nodded. "Spot-on."

The test-floo of the new connection – to Leanne's Manhattan apartment – went off without a hitch, and by the time sunset rolled around everyone was involved in their own little projects. Sam and Bobby, working under Remus' direction, were researching a list of mostly-Latin spells that Remus had neatly printed on a slip of paper. Remus had shown them how to work Harry's book-trunk; Sam was a little envious of the trunk – all he had to do was open it and state the name of the book, an author's name, or a subject keyword and the appropriate books popped out and resized themselves. Harry had received a new cell from Leanne, and after switching out the sim-card, had settled into Bobby's recliner with a battered spiral notebook and a pencil, sometimes muttering things under his breath, sometimes staring into the fireplace like it held the meaning to life. Dean had borrowed Harry's computer and was trying to simultaneously research the possibility of making a new addition to the first aid kit and figure out more about that damn bow.

October 15 – 20, 2007
Singer Salvage Yard
Outside Pierre, South Dakota

The next five days passed quietly at Bobby's house. Much research was done on the various options and methods available to trap or lure Voldemort's spirit into a vulnerable position. Most of the information uncovered was totally useless, as they didn't know if Voldemort was possessing someone or not, but, as Harry kept saying, it never hurt to keep their options open.

Sam found innumerable bits and pieces of information that had nothing to do with trapping spirits, yet were unduly fascinating nonetheless because these snippets of facts and magic unearthed had to do with his irritating psychic 'gifts' and how to control them.

Harry cooked almost every day, though not quite to the excess of the first morning. After noticing what kept catching Sam's attention, Harry spent a little time with the Winchester going over how to focus and meditate. Sam learned that Harry had a pretty strong gift for Self-Healing and a slight – admittedly very slight – talent with the Mind Magics of Occlumency/Legilimency; which was why using said talent always left him with a splitting headache.

Dean managed to figure out a way to skew what he'd done with the gun into something which would heal instead of harm… or so he hoped. He hadn't tested it out yet, mainly because he didn't want to use it on a person, but couldn't bring himself to purposefully hurt the local wildlife. I'd make a lousy research scientist, he realized – after all, it was one thing to kill something that needed killing, but to hurt something that hadn't done anything to deserve it, even if he intended to heal it directly afterwards? That just made his gut twist uncomfortably, and so the doctored Maglight went unused. With his main distraction out of the way, there wasn't much else for him to do but research the bow, and so he joined Sam, Remus, Bobby, and Harry in leafing through books that were probably old enough to have acquired the term 'relic' as a descriptor, rather than just 'antique'.

It was late evening on the twentieth when Harry announced that they were probably about as rested and researched as they could get. Further research would have to wait until they found out exactly what was waiting for them in Europe. When asked, Bobby verified that he would not be accompanying them to the UK – he had several leads on Hunts that needed following. There were still demons that needed catching, after all. He did agree that Dean could leave the Impala at the salvage yard until they returned. Dean didn't much like the thought of leaving his car behind, but knew it was probably for the best – she wasn't precisely street-legal for a country that drove on the wrong side of the road, now was she? Besides, Dean was relatively certain that they'd be traveling either by portkey or floo for the most part. At least, that's what he'd gleaned from fragments of conversation with Harry and Remus.

So, the men bade each other a good night one last time and shuffled off to sleep. The next day was going to be long and they all knew it.

A/N2: I know, I know, this chapter is about half the length it should be. However, it signals my achievement of the Nano goal. Three cheers for me!

(clears throat a little self-consciously)

Um… yeah. There are also two other reasons why it's a little short – the first one being that this marks a stylistic break in the storyline. You will have noticed, I'm sure, that previously I started each chapter segment off with a date, time, and location. This is going to become a bit more fluid in the upcoming chapters. The second reason is that I wanted to start Sam and Dean's introduction to the wizarding world of the UK off in a new chapter. See? It makes sense and you don't even have to squint hard to see it.

Reviews are love.