Eddie woke up in a dark, unfamiliar room. It reminded him of a laser tag arena, but without all the neon lights flashing. His first rational thought was being aware that seven other people were in the room with him. All were staring at one another in confusion. There were four boys and four girls. For several long moments he stared. All around him it was black, except for a light illuminating the eight of them. Eventually, he shifted back to reality.

"Wh-where am I? Who are you all?" Eddie blurted, looking around him. The last thing he remembered was the warmth of his pillow by his cheek and thoughts zooming past his mind about the Wizarding World, as they slowly became fainter and unreal, and he drifted off. Finding himself in a completely new surrounding, with strangers all around him suddenly found him completely numb. Gradually, if not suddenly, panic started rising in his chest, and possibilities raced in his head, each one more terrifying than the previous.

He took a step back as he noticed a girl standing next to him, almost as frozen as he had been a moment ago.

"Let me tell you I'm not af-afraid!" He heard a male voice say, but the quiver completely gave away what its owner really felt. Eddie's eyes darted about the dark room, trying to make out the smallest sign of why he was here, and what this place was. He heard the shuffle of a few feet, and a few more panicky mumbles.

One of the boys, noticing that everyone was as ignorant of the situation as the other, ventured to voice a question.

"Does anybody know what this place is, or why we are here?" His voice did reflect his nervousness, but did not quiver. Another boy was looking skeptically around, doubting that he could have actually ended up in the middle of nowhere with seven random kids. Eddie felt his breath quickening as his heart was beating hard against his chest. He could have sworn it rose up a few inches to reach his throat.

At that precise moment, a voice boomed, reverberating around the blackness.

"Greetings. It is I, the Bringer of Balance." This immediately sent them into a frenzy, trying to decipher where the voice had come. Soon, a man stepped out- no, floated out, like a ghost, from a wall they were facing. "You eight have been chosen for the simple reason of each male and each female belonging to each Hogwarts house."

"But, why?" a brown haired boy with glasses asked. "Why are we here? It doesn't make any sense at all, and us being transported to who knows where and.." His voice trailed off as he struggled to comprehend what was happening.

"Relax, Mr. Hewett." The boy looked shocked at the mention of his name. "Yes, I am aware of all eight of your names. You have simply been teleported to an alternate universe. Your timeline has been frozen, and you will return to your normal world upon restoring the timeline in Harry Potter's universe, for something terrible has happened. You see, on that night in 1981 when Lord Voldemort murdered Lily and James Potter, Voldemort's curse rebounded which did kill Harry despite Lily's love magic. Now, you must fill Harry's shoes and defeat the Dark Lord yourself."

Eddie was still frozen, mouth agape. How could he be in the same universe as Harry Potter? For years he had yearned, dreamed, fantasized, to be among the students of Hogwarts, and now it seemed like he finally would be. Or was he dreaming? He pinched himself. Nope, he wasn't.

Not fazed in the slightest by the group's wonder, the Bringer of Balance answered, "You arrive in separate rooms in the Leaky Cauldron pub at Diagon Alley, on July 31, 1991, holding a Hogwarts letter in hand as well as five hundred Galleons for your school shopping. And before you go," he added, "Translatio magica!"

They looked stunned for a second, before the Bringer of Balance explained, "That spell should have given you roughly the amount of magic an average first year has."

"This is some sort of joke," Sean Stephens scoffed. "Or you've kidnapped me, in which case, you'll regret it you sick-"

Glaring at him, the Bringer of Balance boomed again. "This isn't a game! These universes are on constant loop, over and over again, the timeline repeats itself, until errors are made, in which case I have to enlist the ones most knowledgeable, most qualified, most worthy, in my view, of taking on the task of fixing the reality, as I cannot interfere, for I must watch other timelines!" He paused, and lowered his voice. "It appears that I chose wrong…"

Sean quickly realized his mistake. "I- I'm sorry, Mr. Bringer, sir, I won't doubt you again."

"One more thing," Natalie asked. "How did Voldemort kill Harry, exactly? I thought love magic was supposed to be unstoppable- that was the main point of the series."

"Voldemort used an unusual amount of anger in his spell, which overpowered Lily's magic. I doubt we should see that strength ever again." He then opened a portal and told them to jump through.

"Well," Eddie remarked. "I still don't believe this is happening." Almost shaking, he stepped through the portal. And, one by one, they were off through it, off to a world they had all dreamed of visiting, and off on an adventure none of them would forget.

When Eddie arrived in the Leaky Cauldron he immediately met the others outside. The doors opened into a circular room which Eddie assumed served as a common area. Chipped wooden walls and dusty windows notwithstanding, he had an odd feeling of warmth and welcome. As the Bringer of Balance had told them, they indeed had a Hogwarts letter and a bag of five hundred Galleons.

Once downstairs, they managed to tap the right brick to open Diagon Alley. When the bricks were drawn back, Eddie's mouth widened. It was like the theme park he had gone to once, in Florida, but so much better. It felt… oddly real to him. He could only imagine what it had looked like, reading the series, and the movies didn't do the Alley enough justice. The cobbled street seemed to twist and turn forever until eventually it vanished. Shops lined the street and, passing through them, hundreds of witches and wizards were seen, all talking, doing their daily work. It was beautiful. His heart swelled with unexplainable joy. It would be quite fair to compare it to having three birthdays and five Christmases come at once. Throughout the time at Diagon Alley, he had the involuntary twitching of his cheek muscles that plastered a charmed smile on his face. He felt he needed nothing more. Stepping into the Harry Potter world was the dream that nagged him even though the rational part of his mind tried to neutralise it, and this event seemed to silence that half of his mind eternally.

They went their separate ways when they got inside. Eddie started with his books at Flourish and Blotts. Like most shops in the Alley, Flourish and Blotts was old and dusty. However, also like most shops in the Alley, it carried a certain charm to it. Brushing the titles with his hand, Eddie was lost in wonder for quite a few minutes before he realized he had shopping to do. Checking the list, he quickly scanned the names of the spellbooks he had to buy, smiling slightly at one in particular. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which had gotten a loosely based movie adaptation a few years ago that was Eddie's all time favorite film.

However, he made the foolish mistake of trying to carry all his books at once and ended up dropping them. Hurriedly, he began picking them up, drawing the attention of a blond-haired girl who noticed and immediately started helping him. Eddie realized this was Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff from Harry's year. When all the books were in a bag Hannah had brought over, Eddie thanked her.

"No problem," she said. "The name's Hannah, by the way, Hannah Abbott."

Obviously Eddie already knew this, but didn't tell her that. He instead turned the conversation to Hannah's robes.

"Hey, there's no House emblem on your robes, are you a first-year too?"

"Oh, yeah," she said looking down. "I'm hoping for either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, how about you?"

"Hufflepuff, all the way," Eddie said. He was not shy about his Hufflepuff pride. "House of the kind, just, and loyal."

"Well, I hope you get it!" Hannah said in reply.

"Thanks. The name's Eddie Pattinson." He smiled and left, and she returned to her own booklist.

When he met up with the others, they talked for a bit about their personal lives and what they were doing before they ended up here.

Eddie said that he played baseball, so did Nathan Turner. Victoria Parker played hockey, and Sean played tennis.

Eddie, Nathan, Lily Jackson, and Victoria were American,

Tom, Sean, Natalie Rogers and Claire Davidson were British.

"This is gonna be exciting!" Claire bust out, "I'm just so, so hyped, we're gonna live out Harry's life and we get to be friends with Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Luna and-" at which point she burst into unintelligible squealing.

"Yeah, I can't wait either. Hey, what's the Daily Prophet gonna do if they can't pin Sirius' escape on him coming after Harry?" Tom said.

"Dunno," Nathan said. "Guess we'll just wait and see." He, like many of them, was very excited for whatever was to come, no matter where it lead.

"So what were you all doing when you transported into that room?" Lily asked. "I was just about to take a math test I didn't study for, so that's a relief."

Their answers ranged from watching movies, to being bored to death in class, to, in Eddie's case, reading Harry Potter.

"Hey, wasn't Malfoy there on the same day as Harry?" Tom asked.

"Yeah, I saw him," Claire said. "He was with his mother and father."

"Talk to him at all?"

"No. He's a git."

"Anyone else there?" asked Natalie.

Eddie said he saw Hannah, and Victoria saw Dean, but that was it.

"Well," Natalie said, "I guess we'll see each other over the next month, but if we don't, do you all want to take the same compartment on the journey to Hogwarts?"

There was a general murmur of assent. They bade good bye and returned to their rooms.

Eddie couldn't sleep at all that night. He stayed wide awake, watching the people below, waiting...wondering...

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Eddie saw the others very rarely over the next month. The one he really got to know was Nathan. In addition to playing baseball, Nathan was also into Minecraft, the only other video game that Eddie really played apart from MLB The Show. Nathan however, was a Boston sports fan, and Eddie a fan of the New York sports teams. The cities' teams had a big rivalry, especially in baseball (with the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees) and in football (with the New England Patriots and New York Giants)

When September 1st arrived, they all met on the platform and went through the barrier together. Again, like his compatriots, Eddie was overblown with shock and amazement. Diagon Alley was great, but actually running through the brick wall between platforms nine and ten? That beat the Alley by a long shot, and it wasn't even close.

This is surreal, he was thinking. After having his suitcase loaded, he stepped onto the train, passing slowly through it to take in the atmosphere.

Somehow, they all managed to squeeze into one compartment. "So, what do you guys want to do?" Victoria asked.

No one really had any ideas, until Tom spoke up, "I say we game plan. What are we gonna do knowing what we know?"

"I'd say don't tell anyone unless we really have to," Sean replied, "Dumbledore would be on that list."

"As per individual cases," Tom went on, "I'd say no going after Quirrell until he goes for the stone, but I can't remember what night that is, and as for the Chamber of Secrets….oh no. None of us can get in. We don't speak Parseltongue. We could try that rasping thing that Ron did…." he put his hand on his chin in a thinking position. "Hmm….What if we….I've got it! Just don't write in the diary, no, we can't tell Ginny not to. Wait, duh, we put it in another common room so she can't steal it. Prisoner of Azkaban we can't do much, as that plot really relied on the Trio, so Goblet of Fire, hopefully, none of us get our names put in the Goblet. Order of the Phoenix, I dunno if Voldy's gonna return, so we'll have to wait and see, same for the last two books."

Two seconds' ringing silence followed that statement, then small "Wows" broke out among the other seven.

Tom crossed his arms confidently. He was, after all, a straight-A student in school. His friends called him the "boy Hermione" because he was smart and studious, like the buck-toothed Muggle-born, but got sorted into Gryffindor on Pottermore.

The silence continued for a while until Claire burst out, "Hey! I forgot! I found a deck of Self-Shuffling Playing Cards in Diagon Alley, I forgot they were in my pocket, wanna play?"

"Sure, it's not like we've got anything else to do," said Sean, speaking for the first time.

She laid the cards out, and while they were shuffling themselves, they debated on which game to play.

"We could play Trash," Eddie suggested, "that's a favorite of mine, or B.S."

"What's B.S.?" Natalie asked.

Eddie began to explain but was interrupted by the arrival of the food trolley. Five minutes later, when everyone was laden with Pumpkin Pasties and Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans, he began again.

"Oooh, that sounds fun!" Lily said, "I'm a bad liar though, I'm not sure I would do well."

"Aaah, give it a try," Eddie encouraged her. "First time for everything."

"You're right," she consented, and they began to play.

Nathan ended up winning, but it was a close, competitive game all around.

They played a few more rounds, nobody won twice.

As the skies turned gradually from blue to purple to black, Eddie looked out the window. How long had he fantasized about getting his letter, going to Hogwarts, practicing Charms and Transfiguration, playing Quidditch? Probably since the age of nine when he picked up Sorcerer's Stone for the first time. Watching the trees flick past the window, he desperately tried to calm his nerves, biting his lip, as anxious as a child on Christmas morning.

And before they knew it, word had spread that they had better change into their robes. There was an empty compartment right next to theirs, so they decided to have all the boys go and change in true gentlemanly fashion, moving so the girls didn't have to.

And soon, they arrived in Hogsmeade Station. Stepping off the train, Eddie wanted to run to the castle, but he told himself he must wait, for it would come soon enough. After all, patience was a Hufflepuff value.

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A/N-For those of you who don't know, B.S. is a game where you divide the card deck up as even as possible. Whoever has the ace of spades puts it down face up, and play continues to the left or right, (your preference). After the ace of spades, players put down cards in numerical order (2-10, Jack, King, Queen, ace again, and so on in repeat) face down, while announcing what card you are supposed to put down, regardless if you have it. You are allowed to put down multiple. If someone calls B.S., you flip the card or cards you placed over. If you were lying, you take the whole deck. If you were correct, the person who called B.S. takes the deck. Whoever gets to no cards wins.