Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or The Night World series. They are the original creations of their authors, and therefore, not mine. If they were, I would have done this a whole lot sooner.

It was a bright, sunny morning in August, about two weeks before the beginning of school, and once again, Mary-Lynnette Carter had overslept. She counseled herself to get out of bed and get dressed. As she headed downstairs, she heard something strange, the voice of a young guy talking to her stepmother in their living room. Maybe he was from the FBI, or the police, or something. They were talking about goats, so it was something to do with her next door neighbor Mrs. Burdock, whom Mary-Lynette was sure, had disappeared. She managed to make it to the kitchen without being seen and from there, she could get a good look at the guy without being noticed.

And it was a good look. He was way too young to be police, or FBI, but he was the best looking guy she'd ever seen. Blond and elegant, with slightly tilted eyes. She was too far away to see what color they were. But she wouldn't tell him any of that, should she see him. He didn't look smart at all. He just looked stupid, and she couldn't let herself fall in love with a guy like that. Besides, she had pretty much already decided on Jeremy Lovett. He, like her, was an astronomy buff. The guy in the living room, he probably couldn't even spell astronomy.

Jeremy was smart, sweet, and gentle. And she sort of felt a kinship with him. He lived alone in the woods, had since he was twelve, and his strange uncle had gotten lost searching for gold up in the Klamaths.

Whenever she would bring her old clunker of a station wagon to the gas station where Jeremy worked, she would always be grateful that he never made fun of the cracked glass on her windshield, or the gas cap she had to pry open with a fruit knife.

She suddenly looked up and blinked, bringing herself back to the present. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and was about to go upstairs, when the guy, who'd sprawled himself out on her couch, his long, lanky frame making him look like a cat, gave her a wave.

"Hi."

Okay, she thought, he must have seen me in the hall mirror. She was about to continue her way up the stairs when Claudine, her stepmother had to go and say, "Mary-Lynette, come here and talk awhile to Mrs. Burdock's nephew."

She groaned inwardly. She really didn't want to do that. To postpone it, she decided to go into the kitchen and get herself a Coke. When she came out, both her stepmother, and the guy, Mrs. Burdock's nephew, were waiting for her.

"Mary-Lynnette, this is Mrs. Burdock's nephew Ash."

She mumbled a hello that, with its lack of enthusiasm really would have offended the average person, but not him. She doubted that he even cared.

When she put out her hand, still wet from the soda can, to meet his, she didn't know what to expect. For some reason, she couldn't look at him, couldn't meet his eyes. Or maybe she just didn't want to. So she decided to look at the floor instead, which gave her a good view of his fashionably ratty tennis shoes. Despite herself, she let her eyes travel upward, giving her a view of old, comfy, washed out jeans, torn at the knees, and his t-shirt, white with nothing but a solitary black iris.

That's a strange thing to put on a shirt, she thought. Then she shrugged it off. A lot of rock groups had strange emblems, and that's just what this was, a t-shirt with the logo of some rock group on it. Nothing unusual.

Then they touched, but it wasn't just touching it was more like a jolt. The room began to turn slightly pink and spin around just a bit. The feeling made her nauseous, and dizzy, and she didn't like it one bit. Apparently, neither did the Cat. When they separated, he had a look on his face like he had just done something bad, and someone sprayed him with a spray bottle.

Ticked off and angry.

Claudine quickly changed the subject.

"Mare, Ash is the brother of the girls who just moved into Mrs. Burdock's house."

"Really? She never talked about him." Mare talked over her shoulder to Claudine, pointedly ignoring Ash.

"Wait a minute," she shook her head now, looking at Ash squarely, "yes she did. She said you were a naughty little boy and would probably grow up to be a criminal or a murderer or something."

He grinned slyly at this, like it was something familiar he had been expecting and was proud of.

"She was right about that", he admitted. "I am bad."

"And you're the brother of the girls who moved in next door?"

"Yes, do you know them?"

"We've met."

"Do you have any other brothers or sisters?"

"Why would you care?"

"We're an old-fashioned family, and my father likes me to keep track of their friends because I'm the only boy."

Claudine said, "Mark's her younger brother, but that's all."

Ash nodded. "Okay."

Mare didn't feel up to playing verbal volleyball anymore. Her brain was already filling up with evil things to do to him. She narrowed her eyes.

"So", she said, "you're an old-fashioned family, huh"?

"Yes," he said sounding, to her satisfaction, somewhat uneasy.

"And you think that you can pick your sisters' friends."

"Yes." He said coldly and defiantly.

She kicked him. Hard. Ignoring the pink haze when contact occurred.

"I think you should leave now," she said, her voice sugary sweet.

He muttered some more, but she couldn't hear what he was saying.

She kicked him again. He gasped in pain and hobbled out the door.

Mary-Lynette sighed. She did miss Ash. She missed him a lot. But every time she thought about their first meeting, it made her laugh at how they both acted like a couple of little kids, each wanting their own way. She had been so lost in thought, she hadn't heard Mark come in with the mail.

"Letter for you," he said, dropping a cream-colored envelope in front of her. She studied it, curious as to where it might have come from. It had an official looking seal on it. Most curiously, it didn't even seem to have come from anywhere in America. She studied the seal more closely. It read:

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

A/N- a new story! I've got lots of ideas for this HP/Night World crossover.

Once again, reviews welcome and appreciated.

-Jocelyn