a/n: Infinite thank yous to my beta, AFamiliarWitch, who should just be sending me invoices for time worked, at this point.

"Sir?"

He was standing at the front of the classroom. The fourth years were staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to do something.

He thought he might have been in the middle of a sentence, but he wasn't sure. He felt like he'd just woken up. He had a book open in one hand, and a piece of chalk in the other.

That did not seem right.

"I- what was I talking about?"

"Russia," said one of the students. "And Communism."

What the hell did Communism have to do with the Dark Arts?

He realized at that moment that none of the students were wearing robes. And the classroom he was in was not his own. The walls were not made of stone but rather some sort of concrete, painted white and cracked in places. The desks were different, too. There were large, square windows on the right side of the room, and through them he could see a dingy courtyard covered in patches of dead grass and surrounded by what appeared to be a Muggle office building.

His classroom did not have windows. His classroom was in a castle. Where was the castle?

"Sir?"

They were all still staring at him.

"Where are we?" he demanded.

The students glanced at each other in confusion. None of them said anything.

"Where are we?" he repeated.

"Please, sir, we're in the history classroom."

"I mean where in the country."

"Sir, are you alright?"

"Answer me!"

"Surrey," a few of them said, looking fearful.

"Why- why are we in Surrey?"

He turned over the book in his hand so that he could read the cover: 19th and 20th Century Western Politics. Then he noticed that he was not wearing his robes, having apparently replaced them with stiff Muggle clothing.

"What class is this?"

They were whispering to each other now. "History," one of them said.

Instinctively he reached for his wand, but it wasn't there. That was the moment in which he became moderately concerned.

He threw down the book and began searching the teacher's desk, frantically opening metal drawers and shuffling through fountain pens that were not quills and papers that were not made of parchment.

"What are you looking for, Professor?"

"My wand. Where is my wand?"

There was a closet in the back of the classroom, and he immediately set to tearing it apart while the students looked on with concern.

"Sir," said one of the boys, "you haven't been drinking again, have you?"

He stood up and turned around slowly. "What do you mean, 'again?'"

Silence.

He threw open the classroom door and stepped into the hallway, which consisted of more hideous concrete and a floor covered in linoleum tiles.

This was a dream. It had to be. There was no other explanation. A dream or a hallucination or-

Cornelia.

The memories returned slowly, one by one. He could still picture the smug, satisfied smile she wore right before she disappeared, and he desperately wished he'd had the chance to curse it right off her pretty American face.

Whatever was going on here was surely related to that strange purplish mist she attacked him with. He was probably lying on the floor in front of the staff room right now, unconscious and drooling in some undignified manner. And she was either fleeing the castle or standing over his body, about to kill him.

He walked slowly down the hallway, casting wandless, nonverbal spells in his head, none of which were working. If this was a magic-induced hallucination, he needed magic to get out of it.

A door opened several feet away, and from it emerged a familiar face.

"Morning," Minerva mumbled indifferently, walking past him like their entire world hadn't just disappeared and deposited them into an infernal Muggle hellscape and she was going to go read the paper and maybe do the crossword.

She looked strange without her hat and robes.

"Minerva?"

She stopped. "What?"

"You don't seem to be very concerned by the fact that we are no longer in the castle."

"What castle? What are you talking about?"

"The castle. Hogwarts."

"What the hell is a Hogwarts?"

"It's- it's Hogwarts."

"Oh, well, that explains it. Cheers."

He should have started with the basics.

"Please tell me you know that you're a witch."

Wrong basics.

Her face went very red very quickly, and the look she was giving him could only have been described as murderous. "It is nine o'clock in the morning, Riddle. I do not need to be criticized about my personality by a coworker at nine o'clock in the morning."

"No, I wasn't-"

"And you have no room to talk, with your temper and your incessant 'look at me! I went to Oxbridge! I know everything!' attitude."

"What?"

"So keep your unsolicited opinions to yourself, or next time I won't use words to communicate-"

"No, Minerva, I'm saying magic is real. Tell me that you know magic is real."

She blinked stupidly at him. "Are you drunk again?"

"What? No. We are trapped in a potion-induced hallucination."

"Alright," she said, folding her arms. "So magic is real, now, apparently, but our lives are a hallucination?"

"Yes. Sort of."

She walked away without another word.

He decided to try one more time. He opened the next door he came across, which evidently was Peggy's classroom. She, too, was in Muggle attire, and was writing mathematical equations on the board.

"Oh, good morning, Professor," she greeted. "What can we do for you?"

"Can I speak to you for a moment?"

She set down her chalk and joined him in the hallway, closing the door behind her. "Shouldn't you be teaching right now?"

"Probably. Does the word 'Hogwarts' mean anything to you?"

She stifled a laugh. "What warts? Oh, my. That sounds like a medical condition."

"No, it's- it's a school. What about magic? You know magic is real, right?"

He already knew the answer.

"What are you talking about?"

There was a significant chance that he was the only one here that remembered anything about their real lives. That was fine. Everything was fine. All he had to do was stay sane long enough to figure out how to wake himself up and end this nightmare.

With no help.

And no magic.

And a small but growing sense of cosmic inevitability.

"You are a witch," he explained, "I am a wizard, and we work at a school of magic called Hogwarts."

"A school of… magic," she repeated lamely.

"Yes."

"Is this a religious thing? I don't really-"

"How did we meet?"

"At the start-of-term staff meeting last August. Dippet told you to introduce yourself and you got up and spoke at length about your degree and awards and-"

"Degree?"

"Well, yeah. You seemed quite proud of it."

Naturally. "My degree in…?"

"History."

He made an involuntary choking noise. "I have to go," he muttered, walking off in a random direction in search of the staff room or the headmaster's office or something that made bloody sense.

Whatever phenomenon was occurring wanted him to believe there was no such thing as magic. But it was not as if he could be fooled. He already knew it was a hallucination – that his mind was making it up somehow.

He just didn't know how to escape.

That was what Cornelia's goal had been - to incapacitate him with some sort of nightmare potion. If he could remember the process for freeing oneself from magic-based illusions, he could end this quickly and wake up in time to kill Cornelia before she had a chance to leave the castle. But the only methods he could recall were triggering a traumatic event or dying. Something to shock the brain back into consciousness.

And if it was a shared hallucination – if anyone else had been caught up in the mist – they would need assistance as well. But that was unlikely. It had been three in the morning when Cornelia attacked him.

He was so deep in thought he did not notice Slughorn standing at the corner and nearly walked right into him.

"Good morning, Tom."

He looked at the man and felt a strange sense of relief. "Horace, I need your help."

"Oh, my. 'Horace?' Only my mother calls me 'Horace!' You know I go by 'Howie.'"

The relief vanished instantly. "I- I'm not calling you 'Howie.'"

"You look like you're having a horrible morning. Another weeknight visit to the pub, I take it?"

It was becoming apparent that this imaginary version of himself had a few minor problems with alcohol, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that. "No. Actually, I was wondering if you could…"

"If I could?"

Magic. He had to ask about magic. "Just please, tell me…"

"Tell you what?"

Magic. Shared hallucination. Magic. "WHY DO I TEACH HISTORY?"

Slughorn backed away a bit. "Eh, are you alright, son?"

"No."

It was getting to him. The potion, or whatever it was, was getting to him. He was focusing on the wrong details. He had to maintain control or he would end up lost in his own mind forever.

Or at least until Cornelia decided to kill him.

Slughorn started making his way down the hallway and motioned for Tom to follow.

They stopped in front of a nondescript-looking door with a sign on it saying "Chemistry Department." It was apparently Slughorn's office, though it did not look like anything the actual Slughorn would ever have been able to tolerate. The room was small and shabby. It just managed to fit a desk, two chairs, and a bookcase, but not much else.

Slughorn sat down behind his desk and unlocked a metal drawer with a tiny key. From it he pulled out a large bottle of brandy.

Evidently, some things were truly universal.

"Sit down," he said, pouring them each a shot glass full of brown liquid. "What's bothering you?"

He could not sit. He had started to pace, his mind racing. He knew he should have asked about magic. Made sure Slughorn, like the rest, knew nothing about their reality. But he could not focus on anything else except-

"Why history? Of all things. History." It didn't matter in the least, but- "History."

"Ah, I see what's happening now. Having a bit of a career crisis, are we?"

"What? No. I want to know what ridiculous part of my subconscious decided to equate Defense Against the Dark Arts with History."

"Defense Against what now?"

"For you, Chemistry makes sense. Potions, Chemistry. Fine. But why would I teach history? Why would my brain ever think that was a reasonable scenario?"

Slughorn studied him for a moment. "I can't tell you that, Tom. You've always been very passionate about it, I know that. Your degree-"

"Where did I get this so-called degree?"

"Oxford, obviously. But I think you mentioned once that you also considered becoming an accountant."

"Accountant?" He collapsed into the chair, feeling ill.

This was pointless. None of it was real. He needed to obtain actionable information, not compile a review of his manufactured past so that he could brutally judge his nonexistent Muggle self for making poor life choices.

Muggle self.

He felt even more ill.

"What do you know about magic?" he asked Slughorn in a resigned sort of way.

"Well, everything, of course."

"I'm sorry?"

"I was wondering when someone was going to inquire about it!"

The man was smiling with excitement, and for a moment he looked like the real Slughorn. If Tom was sharing this hallucination with a real Slughorn, they could figure out an escape route much more quickly.

"So, you know about magic?" he asked, daring, perhaps foolishly, to hope-

"Of course!" Slughorn opened another drawer and pulled out a deck of playing cards. He broke the deck into three separate piles and set them on the desk.

"Now," he said, "if you don't like cards, I can do disappearing, too."

"I- what?"

"I perform them both in my act. I do hope you come to see it."

"What act?"

"My… my amateur magician act. Isn't that why you're asking about magic?"

Tom stared at Slughorn. There was a funny ringing sound in his ears. He swore he could hear the universe laughing at him. "I have to… go," he mumbled, rising from his chair.

"You'll come to my show, won't you?" Slughorn asked as he shuffled his deck of cards poorly.

"Horace, there has never been anything I've wanted to do less."

He wandered out into the hallway. He had no idea where his "classroom" was, but he decided to look for it. He needed answers, and maybe something was hidden there, where the hallucination had begun, that could tell him what to do. Every minute he spent here was another minute in which Cornelia was escaping.

The building was a single hallway in the shape of a square with a depressing courtyard in the middle. It only took a few minutes to find the history classroom again. There was a small plaque on the door that read "History and Economics" and he tore it off and threw it on the floor. He would have lit it on fire, too, if he could.

The fourth years were still sitting there, chatting and carrying on. They quieted down as soon as they saw him.

"What time does this class period end?" he asked them.

"In five minutes, sir."

"What were we talking about?"

"The Soviet Union."

"What did you learn about last week?" He was more curious than anything.

"The Bolshevik Revolution."

"And before that?"

"The Russian Empire."

What the hell? "Is Russia all I talk about?"

The children gave each other nervous looks. None of them wanted to answer.

"Brilliant," he muttered.

"Actually, sir," said a very foolish boy in the front, "you talk about China, too."

"Great. Why China?"

"You just… really don't like Communism."

The bell rang, a horrid, ear-splitting sound, and the students filed out of the classroom, a few of them glancing back at him with concern.

He decided to search for the staff room – not that he expected to find answers there, but at least it would feel like he was doing something. He had to make two passes around the building before he found the door, which he had mistaken for a utility closet. The small, faded sign on the wall beside it said "S FF RO M."

Either because the mist that created this world had a disgusting sense of humor, or because his brain could not come up with anything else, the staff room had an uncanny resemblance to the one at Hogwarts. The only things missing were the fireplace and the stone walls.

Even the Ugly Table was there.

Tyre was settled in his usual seat, reading a paper called The Observer. Fogg was in the kitchen.

And Kettleburn had trapped him in a massive hug before he even realized what the bloody hell was happening.

"Please get off of me," he choked.

"You poor thing! All that misery! I've been thinking about it all weekend."

"Please get off of me," he repeated, wishing he had kept a pen on him for stabbing purposes.

Kettleburn released him and shook his head in despair. "A depressing but inspirational story. I'm glad you told us. It makes sense now, of course. I mean, the temper and everything-"

"What the fucking hell are you talking about?"

"The… the whole orphanage thing."

"The what?"

Minerva came in at that moment, saw him, and made a face. "Oh, it's you," she muttered. "Trying to garner sympathy from everyone, I take it?"

Kettleburn looked scandalized. "Minerva! After everything he's been through!"

She snorted. "Kettleburn, you'd hug Grindelwald if you thought he seemed slightly depressed. Stop being fooled by poorly constructed sob stories." She slammed her mug on the counter, yanked the kettle from the stove, angrily poured the water, then slammed the kettle back down onto the stove with a loud clang.

She glared at them both as she left.

"You know," Kettleburn said kindly as they watched the door slam shut, "if you ever need to talk-"

"Silvanus, if there ever comes a time when I approach you wanting to 'talk,' please, I beg you, shoot me in the head."

Back in his classroom, he began to devise a strategy for waking himself up. Nothing he considered was pleasant or painless, but anything was preferable to spending the rest of his life trapped in this repulsive, modern Muggle hell.

Students had started to arrive for his next Russia-themed class, and he wondered if he could convince any of them to hit him over the head with a blunt object. Maybe the shock and pain would be enough to wake him. He was still, perhaps pathetically, holding out hope that he was sharing this hallucination with someone – anyone – that could do magic.

He started the class with purpose. "Do any of you know anything about magic?"

Judging by the clueless looks on their faces, they did not.

One boy meekly raised his hand. "Sir, my aunt is in a church and they live in the woods and build fires and-"

"Cult, Wagner," said the boy beside him. "That's called a cult."

"No, it's not! Anyway, they use magic all the time."

"Cult magic."

"There's this program," one of the girls said, "on the wireless, and I think it's got a witch in it."

"My mother doesn't let me listen to that because it offends God," said another.

"That show is boring, anyway."

"You're boring!"

"Shut it!"

They started arguing and he had no desire whatsoever to stop them. He certainly wasn't going to teach. None of the students were real. And he cared for Muggle history about as much as he cared for Quidditch. While the children bickered, he stared at the ridiculous fountain pen on his desk, willing it to fly up into the ceiling like a javelin, thinking he was probably going to have to throw himself off the roof in order to get out of this nightmare.

And then the fountain pen flew up into the ceiling like a javelin.

"Oh."

The class fell silent as they gazed up at the thing, which had lodged itself deep into the disgusting ceiling tile. He hurriedly searched through drawers and cabinets, collecting every other pen he could find and setting them all on top of the desk. There were dozens of them. Why he had so many, he could only guess. Saving them for when he became an accountant, probably.

He cleared a space on the desk and set a single pen down carefully onto the wood. He stared at it while the class looked on with interest.

He stared.

And stared.

"Eh… sir?"

"Shut up."

More staring.

He knew he could do it. He just had to-

The pen suddenly stood up on its own, then shot toward the ceiling with the speed of a bullet, burying itself into the tile a few inches away from the other one.

The students were stunned. Some of them clapped.

"How did you do that, sir?"

"Do it again!"

"Can you teach us?"

It went on like that for a while until he was certain he could manage it without intense concentration. He felt like he had at the orphanage, all those years ago, when he'd finally succeeded in floating a stone in the air for longer than a second, right before watching it fall and becoming extremely angry, then accidentally making it throw itself through a window.

When the bell rang, there was a knock on the door and Peggy poked her head in. "Professor, I was wondering-"

She froze when she realized what she was seeing: every student was out of his or her seat, crowding around the desk and staring in awe at the ceiling above, which now had about a hundred pens sticking out of it.

"Yes?" Tom said casually.

"I- I'll come back later."

"No need. We're done." He threw the rest of the pens into the rubbish bin, ignoring the students' disappointed groans.

"For homework," he told them, "write something about history."

Peggy seemed bemused by that. "'Write something about history?'" she said as they walked out into the hallway.

"They'll figure it out. What did you want?"

"Well… Walk with me to the cafeteria. I'll explain."

Apparently, it was lunchtime.

The entrance to the cafeteria had a sign above it that read "The Grayson Grayson Memorial Canteen." It was already crowded by the time they got there. The large, rectangular room was filled with long, rickety tables and malodorous rubbish bins. It looked like a cross between a questionable tube station restaurant and the kitchen at the orphanage. Gloomy and impoverished, but in a modern sort of way.

"Good lord, I miss the Great Hall," he said.

"The what?"

"Never mind."

He followed Peggy to the food line. Dee Carson was standing behind a counter, serving people, the look on her face more depressing than anything else he had seen so far. He made a mental note to never, ever tell Dee his brain had equated her job to being a lunch lady. She'd break his neck for it.

"Now," said Peggy, handing him a tray, "I know you keep botching things with Minerva, so I came up with a plan."

"A plan for what?"

"For getting her to say yes the next time you ask her out."

He dropped his tray on the floor with a loud clatter. "I don't- why on earth would I do that?"

"Well, I told you after the first time that it was a risky endeavor. She's not exactly the type to go out on dates. Especially with coworkers. But you were determined."

"No, I'm fairly certain I wasn't."

"The last two times, I think, showed considerable progress."

"There were no times. There were zero times. And anyway, she appears to moderately despise me." Not that it mattered in the slightest.

"Yes, but only moderately! That's one level down from severely, which, I think we can agree, is where you started."

The food behind the counter looked like mush. Several different types of mush, in a variety of unpleasant colors, accompanied by something that might have, at one time, been considered bread. The smell was nauseating. "I need to go now," he said, setting down his tray.

"Don't you want to hear my plan?"

"Good lord, no."

Once again, he found himself wandering the hallway, as if repeatedly traversing the same square-shaped path over and over would yield new answers. Surely Cornelia was long gone by now. Or maybe an hour in this torturous existence equated to mere seconds in the real world, and she was still there. He chose to believe the latter – looking forward to brutally murdering a colleague was the only encouragement he'd had so far.

He passed the door to the courtyard and a bitter, revolting smell hit him. Two students appeared to be hunkered in a corner, smoking cigarettes. Out of habit he made to confront them and dole out punishment. They had seen him coming, of course, and they were frantically trying to hide the contraband.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Nothing, sir. We found them. We didn't know what they were. They just lit themselves, I swear!"

"First of all, why would you think the most optimal location for smoking in the middle of the school day was the courtyard that can be seen from almost everywhere in the building? And second, what the hell kind of excuse is 'they just lit themselves?' It's like you're not even trying. I expect more from random students manifested by my own potion-addled brain. Honestly."

They stood with their heads down, awaiting punishment.

Smoking was a disgusting, useless Muggle habit. He never cared for it, never even wanted to try it. The very idea was repulsive.

"Give me one," he said quietly.

They seemed surprised. One of them handed him a pack and he pulled out a single long cigarette. He could already smell the foulness.

He held it between his fingers and stared at it.

And stared at it.

And fucking stared at it.

Finally, after a full minute of frustrated glaring, the tip of the thing started to smoke and spark. That was more like it. He took a celebratory drag and then realized, wheezing, that he did not smoke.

"Jesus Ch- Christ." He threw the cigarette onto the ground and walked away.

"Sir?" one of the boys called, "what about our punishment?"

He turned around and stared at them. "You've really got to get better at this," he said.

He returned to the hallway for the hundredth time and found Ilania walking quickly in the opposite direction. She appeared distressed.

"Hello," she said as she passed him, not bothering to look up.

"Hello."

Something made her stop. She turned around and stared at him, eyeing him up and down, her head tilted to the side slightly and her mouth hanging open.

"Are you an illusion?" she whispered, more to herself than to him.

His heart started to race. "Illusion? What do you mean?"

She walked up to him and peered into his eyes as if desperately searching for something. "I thought maybe it was everyone, but then it seemed like just me, and…"

"What are you saying?"

She took a deep breath. "None of this is real," she said. "It's an illusion. I woke up here and it felt like I knew the place, but then I realized it was all wrong because everyone here is a-"

"Muggle."

Her eyes widened. "YES! Oh, thank god. I thought I was alone and stuck forever and I can't be stuck here forever, Tom, I can't. They have me teaching biology. BIOLOGY, TOM!"

"Alright, calm down." It was good to know it wasn't just his brain that had designed this infuriating nightmare.

She took a few calming breaths before continuing. "And there's no bloody magic."

"Well…"

She stared at him. "Are you saying you were able to cast something?"

"A bit. In a manner of speaking."

The bell rang and children started filling the hallway. She grabbed his arm and pulled him into a closet and closed the door.

It was awkward.

"What did you manage to do?" she asked impatiently, her face full of excitement.

"Why are we in a closet?"

"What did you do? Tell me!"

"I launched a pen into the ceiling."

"You…" She sighed in utter disappointment. "A pen."

"Well, dozens of them, actually. One at a time. Performance was consistent."

"A pen," she repeated.

"I'd like to see you try it," he said defensively.

"Well, I have no idea how to get out of here or why I'm even here in the first place. I mean, I know it's a hallucination, but-"

"I know why we're here. Where were you before this all happened?"

"I was on the marble staircase, I think. Walking downstairs to fetch something from a first-floor classroom."

"I was in front of the staff room door. It was Cornelia."

Ilania looked bewildered. "Cornelia? What did she do?"

"She released some kind of potion. A mist that filled the entire first floor. She wanted to incapacitate us so that she could escape. Or kill us while we're lying unconscious-"

She put a hand up to stop him. "Hang on. Why would she do this in the first place? And what makes you think she wants to kill anyone?"

"She was responsible for Valentine's Day. For poisoning us. And she has been running an illegal potions trade among the students all year. She's a dangerous criminal."

Ilania bit her lip. He could tell her mind was working furiously to comprehend it all. "Fine. That's one issue. The bigger problem right now is getting us out of here."

"I know how we can escape, but it's not pleasant."

He explained what he knew, and minutes later, they had a plan. It was not a nice plan, but it was something. They locked themselves in an empty classroom to work out the details and to… practice.

"Try it again."

"I was going to try it again! Stop telling me what to do."

He folded his arms. "My apologies. Clearly you are the expert, even though I'm the only one of us that has actually managed it so far."

"You said that. Ten times now. Shut up and let me concentrate."

Her brow furrowed. She was extremely focused, so focused that her cheeks were going red and her eye had begun to twitch.

A second later, one of the pens rolled off the desk and fell pathetically onto the floor with a clatter.

"I DID IT!" she cried, jumping up and down like a child.

"Yes. You, or a small gust of wind. Hard to tell."

She stopped jumping. "I hate you."

"We need more power. We're never going to reach the point of being able to do the bloody Cruciatus Curse if it's going to take this long to get the basics down."

"Let's just keep practicing. Maybe we can blow the place up with Fiendfyre instead."

He sighed. "Yes, as soon as we graduate from moving pens a couple of inches at a time, we'll jump right to Fiendfyre."

She thought for a moment. "Well, we could always…"

"What?"

"We could always make a bomb."

He stared at her. "You're suggesting we actually blow ourselves up?"

"No, but we could frighten ourselves…" She threw her hands up in frustration. "I don't know! You said intense fear!"

"Yes! But preferably not intense fear that could also kill us! Do you even know how to make a bomb?"

"I… know… how to make a lot of different types of bombs."

"Why-"

"Don't ask. Not important. But it would certainly be shocking enough, wouldn't it? To be in close proximity to an explosion?"

He would have preferred accomplishing their escape with magic, but there simply wasn't time. And, unfortunately, the bomb idea was the most likely to succeed. He did not care for bombs, so they would probably be even more effective. There was no way the plan could fail to wake them up. However…

"I am not fond of bombs."

Ilania rolled her eyes. "Alright, let's just chuck ourselves off the roof and hope we get it right the first time."

After fifteen minutes of strategizing, which had turned into arguing, which had then turned into them wanting to kill each other, which might have solved the problem then and there, they had a new plan. Ilania made a list of required components and they set out to find them.

He had only been in the hallway for a few minutes before he caught sight of Minerva, who was waving at him and trying to get his attention. He turned and walked the other way.

He did not want to talk to her. He did not want anything to do with her, especially if she was under the impression that this idiot Muggle version of himself had suggested some kind of liaison. It wasn't real, of course, but if they came out of this nightmare remembering things, it would make interaction with her extremely annoying, and he did not have the patience for that sort of nonsense.

"Stop walking away, you bastard!" she yelled before he could turn the corner and disappear.

He stopped. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to apologize for what happened this morning. It was quite unprofessional-"

"Minerva, I don't even remember what happened this morning."

She ignored his interruption. "It was quite unprofessional of me. I know you have trouble communicating. I should have-"

"Wait, why do you think I have trouble communicating?"

"Well, you said you did. Because of your childhood. I can't imagine growing up in an orphanage-"

"How on earth do you know about the orphanage?"

She frowned. "You… You told us at the last happy hour. I think you were a bit-"

"There is not a single possible circumstance in any version of any universe in which I would ever attend something called 'happy hour.'"

Now she was annoyed. "Well, forgive me, your majesty, but if I recall correctly, last Friday you got completely drunk within the first half hour, spent the next half hour mumbling about your unfair childhood, then ended the evening yelling at everyone for daring to split the bill evenly because if you didn't order cocktails, you should not have to pay for cocktails."

"That- that is not- I would not do that."

"That's a pretty standard Friday evening for you, to be honest."

"There was no Friday evening! None of it was real. That never happened. But magic is real. And I can prove it this time." He pulled a pen out of his pocket.

"What the hell are you doing? You're not going to stab me, are you?"

"Just look."

"I have no desire to hear any more about…"

Her mouth fell open.

He was floating the pen in the air above them. It swayed a bit, then shot out of sight.

"Well, shit," she said.

And then she broke all the windows in the hallway.

"Jesus Christ!" he yelled.

"Was- was that me?"

"Were you trying to break all the windows?"

She prodded a piece of glass on the ground with her foot. "I was trying to open one. But magic… that explains the desk transfiguring, then. Is that even a word? 'Transfiguring?'"

"Yes. It's a word. What did you transfigure it into?"

"Er- I guess you could call it an explosive ball of fire."

"So, you blew up a desk."

She shrugged. "Maybe. Is this really all a dream?"

He explained about the mist, which then required him to explain what a potion was, and about Cornelia, and who Cornelia was, and the fact that they were likely lying unconscious on the floor somewhere. And then he told her their plan for escaping.

"Absolutely not."

"It's the only way."

"What if it doesn't work? And what about everyone else? We have no idea who is real here, and who isn't. What if we trap someone here forever?"

"All we have to do is search the castle for anyone else who is unconscious and revive them."

"We just have to traumatize ourselves to near death, first."

"Yes."

"No. I won't do it. Not if there's a chance that this is real, and that we could put children in danger."

"Not children. Illusions. And if you remember our world at all, then why would you even consider any of this to be real?"

"I said no, Tom."

He glared at her. "Fine. Do you know where the caretaker's shed is?"

"Shed? There is no shed. The janitor has a closet, though. Why?"

"Because I'm bored and I want to sweep the floor. Just tell me where it is."

It took half an hour to find everything, and he arrived at his two o'clock class carrying a large box of components. Luckily, they were sixth years - old enough to follow instructions properly.

"I'm assuming," he told them, "that we're in the middle of some module related to Russia."

"We're doing the War, sir."

"Perfect. For this class, we are going to set up a practical demonstration of wartime ingenuity. Follow me."

This was either a brilliant strategy or the deadliest, most violent, most idiotic idea he'd ever come up with.

If it turned out to be the latter, he could always blame it on Ilania.

The auditorium was a large, ugly room with rows of hard, uncomfortable-looking seats and a poorly lit stage at the front. Beery was already there with a crowd of students, practicing some Muggle play, no doubt.

"But the wonderfullest trick of all," one of the students was saying, reading from a battered script, "was the coffin trick. We nailed him into a coffin and he got out of the coffin without removing one- er- Sir?"

"What is it, Singleton?" said Beery.

The boy pointed to the back of the room, where Tom was standing with his class.

"Oh, hello, Professor!" Beery greeted. "Do you have the auditorium booked for something? We sort of just commandeered it, you know. For some extra practice."

Tom approached the stage and set down his box. "Yes. Booked."

"Ah. Not a problem. I must find Professor Kettleburn anyway, before he burns down what small portions of the set we've managed to build so far." He ushered his students out of the auditorium.

Ilania arrived and took over, directing the sixth years and putting pieces together with alarming speed. Progress was steady, and they were quite far along before the cavalry came.

Minerva had barged into the auditorium like a bull, accompanied by Slughorn, Peggy, and Fogg. She ordered the students to leave and then rounded on Ilania.

"Relax Min," Ilania said, cutting off the woman's tirade before it could start. "It'll be fine."

"Fine? Fine?"

While the women argued, the rest of the professors stood there, watching Tom with worried faces and being utterly useless.

"Er- Tom?" said Slughorn.

He removed the caps from several petrol containers and then stood up. "What?"

"Is there a reason you are constructing a very large bomb in the middle of the auditorium?"

"Yes."

"Right. This isn't because of the history thing, is it?"

He thought for a moment. "Actually, I think you could say it is."

Having no success convincing Ilania to stop, Minerva then attempted the same on him. He was barely paying attention.

"We evacuated the children," she tried to tell him.

"Mm." The wires were almost fully attached now.

"Do you even care whether or not we evacuated the children?"

And the timer fit into the little slot he had made quite nicely. "Not really."

"You're mad. Both of you. This is madness. You're going to get yourselves killed!"

For a moment, Ilania looked like she was starting to have second thoughts. "I need a cigarette," she muttered, and disappeared backstage.

Whatever Miss Follow-the-Rules was going to yell at him next never came. She had fallen silent, her face blank.

"There's another way," she said quietly.

Tom sighed. "If you are about to tell us to think of the children or consider a non-violent solution or some rubbish-"

"No, I mean there's another way to escape."

"What are you talking about? You didn't even know what Transfiguration was an hour ago."

"Fine. I may have… understated what I remembered. A bit. It doesn't matter."

"So, you lied?"

"Anyway, I know that a hallucination like this requires crafting. Cornelia didn't just knock us out and then hope that our brains would come up with something. She must have tailored the illusion to fit whatever torturous scenario she wanted, which means she will have left a mark."

"And what would this 'mark' look like?"

"I don't know."

"Brilliant."

Seconds later, Ilania had returned, and they shared with her Minerva's inane theory. But instead of brushing it off, she smiled.

"Why are you smiling?" Minerva said impatiently.

"Because, I think I know where the mark is."

She took them through the building and out the front doors, not stopping until they reached the car park. "I came out here hoping to have a smoke before I remembered nothing was real, and I saw that." She pointed at the front of the building, upon which was written, in giant red, white, and blue letters, the name of the school:

CORNELIA FOWLER'S SCHOOL FOR BRITISH DUMB-ASSES

"Well," said Tom, "I think that qualifies. How do we destroy it?"

Minerva grimaced. "Magic, I think. If we can manage it."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a voice behind them.

They turned around to find Cornelia standing there, grinning at them like a lunatic. She looked like Christmas had come early.

"Oh, I hope I'm standing over your bodies right now. That would be a good laugh. How long have you been wandering around this government-funded wasteland?"

"Long enough to want to murder you when we get out," said Ilania.

"Get out?" She laughed. "I'm here to make sure you never get out. But maybe, if you're really nice to me, I'll give you a hint."

There was a sizeable hunting knife in his quarters that Tom was itching to bury into this lunatic's chest. "Are you saying you know how we can escape?"

"Of course, asshole. It's my potion."

"Then tell us."

"What's in it for me?"

Minerva groaned. "Cornelia, either tell us how to escape or shut your big fat American mouth before I curse it off."

"With no wand?"

"I'm sure I can figure it out."

Cornelia sighed and rolled her eyes in the most obnoxious way possible. "You're all so boring. And arrogant. And prudish. Do you have any idea how hard it was to go an entire year without killing one of you? But I'm a reasonable person. If you want to escape, here's a hint-"

But they never got to hear what the hint was. The entire front of the school had chosen that moment to violently explode, the force of it almost knocking them over.

"Oops," said Minerva.

"Did you just blow up-"

"I am under a considerable amount of stress right now!" she yelled.

And with that, the mist returned, and everything disappeared.

He felt like he hadn't slept in weeks.

He had woken up with an unpleasant jolt and, naturally, found himself on the floor. The others were already in the staff room. Ilania was pacing back and forth, muttering about biology, and Minerva was staring into the fire.

The first thing he did was test himself. He used his wand to set the Ugly Table on fire.

Beautiful, glorious magical destruction.

The other two didn't seem to notice.

He spoke first.

"Ilania, why do you know how to make bombs?"

She frowned. "I was hoping you wouldn't remember that. What I want to know is why we could recall who we were right away, but Minerva couldn't."

"It was odd," said Minerva. "I had distinct memories of that place. I thought it was all real until at least lunchtime."

"What happened at lunchtime?"

"I saw how disgusting the food was and suddenly remembered the Great Hall."

He did not like the idea of the Muggle version of himself existing in anyone's memory for any length of time. "Does that mean you remember-"

"You do not want to know what I remember."

"Right."

A few quiet minutes went by before anyone spoke again.

"What did you teach?" he asked Minerva. "If not Transfiguration?"

"Does it matter?"

"No, I'm just curious."

She sighed. "Literature."

Ilania snorted. "Really?"

"How was biology, dear? Did you enjoy it? Discover a love for dissecting small animals? Thinking about a career change?"

Ilania pulled out her wand. "Shut up before I murder you."

They went silent again.

"Did you really grow up in an orphanage?" Minerva asked Tom after a while.

Ilania stared at him. "Orphanage?"

"We're wasting time," he said firmly. "We have to find Cornelia."

"We do," Ilania agreed. "Do you think there's any chance she's still in the castle?"

Minerva got up and headed for the door. "Let's find out."