Chapter Three: Gamechanger

Late disclaimer: What a surprise, I cannot claim ownership for any of the characters from either Supernatural nor Harry Potter. Shame.

Dean fell into a chair and put his feet up onto the desk in front of him. The three of them were gathered in Bobby's office now; a room with pale grey walls covered in shelves laden with a myriad of files and folders, generally labeled 'research'. Dean snorted. No wonder Sam coutline be dragged away from here it here - this was his idea of a wet dream. Dean slid his eyes to the right, inspecting his brother out of the corner of his eye. Sam was sat on a chair next to him, hazel eyes fixed on the wall behind Bobby. Typical, he was pretending not to be aware of what was up whilst really listening in on the whole damn thing. Well, Dean was going to have to fix that.

He leaned in towards Sam, voice low as he spoke. 'Bitch.'

Sam turned to look at Dean. The faintest of smiles touched his lips. 'Jerk.' He murmured in reply.

Bobby finished manoeuvring his wheelchair into the space behind the desk, leant forward, and, with a single thrust of half-hearted movement, pushed Dean's feet off the surface. Dean made an expression of indignance, then turned to his former mentor.

'So, Bobby. You gonna tell me why I'm here? Other than the fact that you just wanna appreciate at this beautiful face, that is.'

Bobby stated unblinking at Dean from under heavy Browns, apparently unaffected by Dean's 'charms'. 'Okay then, let's cut to the chase. MACUSA have a mission for you two, and you need briefing.'

'Woah woah woah, hang on a minute - what?' Confusion riddled Dean's face as he looked from Sam in Bobby in disbelief. 'MACUSA have a mission for me? Since when am I the wizarding government's lap dog? There's no way I'm doing anything for that bunch of jackasses, so you can forget it.'

'You ain't got no choice, Dean.' Bobby answered. 'You're going on this mission, whether you like it or not, and I've gotta prepare you, so the faster we move on, the better.'

'I 'ain't got a choice'?' Dean looked at Bobby in disbeloef. 'What the hell does that mean? Of course I got a choice, they haven't got anything on me; they can't make me doing anything. I mean for god's sake, I ain't even part of this frickin' world!'

'That's the point.' Sam chipped in, sighing. 'They do have something on you, Dean.'

'Oh yeah, like what?'

'You refused to go with the authorities when you were eleven. By rights, you should have studied at Ilvermony and been registered with MACUSA. At least the latter, but now, they can only keep track of you through us, and they silently agree to that arrangement as long as you're at their beck and call.'

'But I didn't agree to that.' Dean protested, eyes flashing angrily, looking from Sam to Bobby. 'There was no deal, there was no talk, I didn't know anything about this.'

'They like to make things unspoken at MACUSA.' Answered Bobby, with a look that perfectly summed up just what he thought of the American Wizarding Congress. 'Either way, there's no getting out of it. If you go against them, they'll force you into an education scheme and to be registered and tracked by the government as a Supernatural Hunter. It's either lose your freedom for eight months or lose it for the rest of your life. Your choice.'

'Jeez, can we just hang on a second here?' Dean put his hand up, and sat forward in his chair. 'You're saying that MACUSA want to literally blackmail me into a mission?'

'Basically, yeah.' Replied Bobby bluntly. 'If you wanna put it like that. Whining about it ain't gonna help.'

Dean gritted his teeth. 'And this mission will involve using magic? Pretending to be some wand-waving jackass?' He questioned, looking to Bobby.

'Yeah.' Bobby replied, eyes resting on Dean's face. He knew Dean all too well, and B knew what this meant to him. Betraying his father, forsaking his own beliefs - the kid was proud, loyal and stubborn, just like his Father. Bobby had known the Winchester kids since they were toddlers, an old friend of their Dad's, although John Winchester had never dis cussing Bobby's ties in the magical world with him, only even seen him as an ordinary but useful hunter. But Bobby cared about the kids in his non nonsense way; pain in the asses they were - and they trusted him. Even Dean.

'So I have to pretend to be one of them?' Dean swore loudly. "Live in this world for eight frickin' months? No way, no way, I can't do it-'

'Why is this such a big thing to you ?' Sam burst out, his voice as sharp as a razor. 'Why are you so against having to cast magic, seeing what it's like to be who you're meant to be?'

Dean turned on him, equally ready to start another fight. 'Because it's not who we're meant to be, dad raised us to be hunters, not frickin' wizards, and if you can't accept that, Sammy, then-'

'SHUT THE HELL UP, BOTH OF YOU!' Bobby raised his voice from a growl to a roar and the Winchester brothers fell silent as they looked at the floor, Bobby himself angrier than the two of them combined, as if he were scolding naughty children. 'Now you two brats had better stop wasting time picking at each other or you're both gonna end up knee deep in crap. You're gonna need each other for this mission; you gotta be a team. Yeah, it's frickin' unacceptable that MACUSA are forcing you to do this, Dean, but I was gonna ask you myself anyway. This is not just for MACUSA, this is for M.I.S.H.A., we wouldn't want any old idjit for this mission.'

There was a pause, then Dean looked up at Bobby. 'So what is this mission, then? How come it's so important?'

Bobby sighed. 'Seeing as you will have spent the last four years road tripping in your Dad's old car moulded to the front seat, you won't have heard the news, but there are rumours in Wizarding America that have started to bleed through from Europe. They're saying the Potters' son has been found, and that he's at Hogwarts. And, since he's been there, guess what? There's been an increase in hush-hush from the British Ministry of Magic. The school was nearly closed in 1992 for unsaid reasons of threat; in 1991 there was a full security lockdown on it; and last year a mass-murderer was reported to have been sighted there and there was a werewolf - a wizarding one, thank god - on the staff register.'

'Woah woah, slow down a minute, Bobby.' Dean cut in as Bobby paused to take a breath, his face screwed up in irritated confusion. 'Do I look like Clark Kent to you? I don't have a photographic memory and I have no frickin' clue who these people are in the first place.'

Sam looked at him in disbelief. 'You don't know who Harry Potter is?'

'What - don't tell me - you're a fangirl too?' Dean turned to Sam in mock amazement, clasping his hands over his mouth.

'You seriously don't know what we're talking about here?'

'Boo hoo, I don't know who some spotty little tween weirdo is. God dammit, will you just get to the frickin' point here?'

'Harry Potter is the only person in wizarding history to have survived being attacked with the killing curse.' Bobby took over from Sam, who was just irritating Dean further. 'And the bad guy who blasted that spell at him was a sadistic dick known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, a.k.a. Lord Voldemort-'

'Bobby, you can't say his name!' Sam stated at him in shock.

'I'm not a terrified Brit, Sam. Not like he's just gonna appear out of thin air and murder me.'

'Look, I may have have been living under a rock for the past twenty-one years as far as your weirdo-world is concerned,' Dean began, once Bobby had finished. 'But I do know who this Lord Smorgasbord or whatever is.'

'Uh, yeah, and you can even pronounce his name.' Sam interjected. 'What the hell is a Smorgasbord?'

'Jesus, Sammy.' Dean facepalmed in mock shame. 'It's a range of open sandwiches and delicacies served as hors d'oeuvres or a buffet. Do they teach you anything useful here?' Sam rol led his eyes, and Dean returned to the previous topic. 'As I was saying, I may be ignorant with all this but I'm pretty sure that guy died like ten years ago or something.'

'Yeah, he did.' Answered Bobby bluntly. 'And that's the whole point of this mission, dumbass, if you two would shut up long enough for me to explain.' Silence fell as Bobby glared from one Winchester to the other, then continued.

'Yeah, Voldemort died thirteen years ago. He'd been at large over in Britain for over a decade - terrible time for wizards and witches over there. Him and his followers killed hundreds and nearly overthrew the government - looked like he was going to until news of a prophecy slipped out; about a kid who would one day be the one to kill the bastard. That kid, apparently, was Harry Potter, and on Halloween, 1981, Voldemort murdered Potter's parents and went to kill the kid. But, the spell rebounded and destroyed Voldemort himself, and since then, well, everyone's presumed he's dead.'

'And why do I get the feeling that you think there's more to this than that?' Dean questioned, raising his eyebrows.

'Get this, okay?' Sam had spoken, Dean switching to look at him. His face was earnest as he explained the whole thing. 'Throughout the time when he was leading his rebellion, a few reports trickled in that went unnoticed - reports detailing of how witches and wizards had fired killing curses at him and nothing had happened. And you can't help but think that, surely a tyrant with the a plan to conquer the wizarding world would have protected himself against being killed, magically or otherwise. So we're saying-'

'That this dude never actually died?' Dean cut in. 'But didn't they find his body?'

'Yeah, they found it alright.' Bobby answered gruffly. 'But you forget that most witches and wizards are separate - protected by their magic - from our world. They don't know about how it all works. And more importantly, they don't know about souls.'

Dean's face dawned in realisation. 'So his soul could have survived?' He looked at Bobby. 'How does that work? With wizards, I mean.'

'We don't know.' Sam answered. 'But it's definitely possible. There are ancient, forbidden spells of the Dark Arts that involve meddling with souls, and You-Know-Who could have easily used one of them.'

'Okay, let me get this straight.' Dean leant forward on the desk, stating his points with his hands on the polished pine wood. 'You think this evil wizarding dictator's soul has appeared again after Harry Blotter or whatever his name is went to school and is looking for a body?'

'To be honest, we don't know what the hell he's looking for.' Answered Bobby. 'But if he's back for a second time, it means a shitstorm of crap is coming to the wizarding world.'

'Yeah, but, by the sound of it, only for the Brits.' Said Dean, raising his eyebrows. 'Since when did MACUSA care about them? If the dude's not gonna come over here then they're fine; safe and sound.'

'MACUSA cares because last time, Voldemort had started spreading his followers to the states just before he died.' Said Bobby. 'He wanted to take over the whole of the world, Dean - if he's back, he ain't gonna settle for just England. And, if you'd just let me frickin' explain, I could tell you the rest of what you need to know.'

'There's more?' Dean questioned, face creased in confusion.

'Of course, you dumbass; you think M.I.S.H.A.'d be investigating this if it was just wizarding shit? We're the Ministry of Investigation of Supernatural and Horrific Activity, and we have contacts in Britain. Rumour has it demons are starting to line up behind a new master; switching sides and playing in the wizarding world. And there's been angelic activity over there as well. There was an angel, Samandriel; asked him some questions. He couldn't tell us who they are, but it looks like two archangels have been vacationing over there recently - one of them somewhere in Scotland.' Bobby paused and looked hard at Dean. 'Hogwarts is in Scotland. Harry Potter is also in Scotland.'

'So you wanna send me and Sam over to Britain to find out whether any heavenly or hellish bastards are involved in this and give the all-clear that Smorgasbord is nowhere to be seen, or tell you if he is?' Dean asked. 'That's it, right? Nothing more?'

'You saying you'll do it?' Bobby's voice held a hint of suspicion and surprise, and Sam looked equally confused. They had expected Dean to be a lot harder to persuade than this.

'Well yeah, don't have a choice, do I?' Dean shrugged grouchily. 'Might a well cut to the chase and get it over with, like Bobby says. Sounds pretty simple.'

'Uh… yeah. Right.' Said Sam, meeting Bobby's gaze. They hadn't explained the full extent of the mission yet. Maybe Dean'd feel different once he'd heard what he was going to have to do to go undercover.

'I just have two conditions.' Dean went on. Looking from Bobby to Sam, gaze determined, jaw set stubbornly. 'One - no flying.'

Sam snorted in amusement. 'This is the wizarding world, Dean, there are other ways to get you across the Atlantic Ocean than No-Maj transport.'

'Okay, good to know. Sounds about the only positive thing in your weirdo society.' Dean answered. 'Two - we get to bring along a third party. I can't just do this with Sam; we need an extra something on our team.'

'Okay, but, who?' Sam questioned.

Bobby looked to Dean as well, who creased his face in disbelief at their cluelessness and held out his hands out, looking at the two of the, ludicrously. 'Oh come on,' he said. 'Brown hair, blue eyes, about yeigh high, looks like he's got a stick shoved permanently up his ass? Who else could I be talking about?'