A/N: Good evening. We (that is, mynameisbob and Duckweed) would like to say a few words before you begin reading this unbearably pointless crossover. First off, before you start doubting our sanity, we must tell you that we came up with the idea for this while sitting in the very back of an un-air conditioned classroom listening to the ramblings of a mildly incompetent English teacher. Well, we WOULD have been listening, if we weren't busy writing this. Please blame the teacher, not us. On the other hand, doubting our sanity is most likely a relatively good idea.

Also, if you happen to enjoy this particular brand of humor, we recommend taking a look at Duckweed's infamous Gwin story, and/or mynameisbob's Jam Jar Drabbles, in which Inkheart's cast experiences the wonders of the aforementioned condiment. Having finished with self-advertising, we encounter a familiar fanfiction feature—the disclaimer.

Disclaimer: Do not sue us, it would make us sad. Then we would get depressed and kill ourselves by flailing our arms in a dramatic manner and throwing ourselves off of conveniently located bridges.

Chapter 1

"Protego!" shouted Harry, just barely managing to block the curse directed at him. All around him were the sounds of battle. Carnage surrounded them, and Harry kept stumbling as he backed away from the staring red eyes and silted nostrils of Voldemort. Harry shot off a curse at that white face, but he missed his mark. A red line of light just barely missed him as he blocked yet another curse from Voldemort. Harry was getting desperate. He had not been ready for this sudden attack and the order was losing badly.

Voldemort lazily flicked his wand, shouting "Avada Ke--"

The scenery started spinning, picking up speed, until everything was just a multi-colored blur.

Suddenly Harry's vision went black.

It stayed like that for quite a while.

Harry was lying on his back. He could see a high, vaulted ceiling, which seemed to be spinning slowly. Where had the battlefield gone? Where was he now? Had he been killed? Was wherever he was now the place you go to when you die?

Harry rolled over, and finding that he wasn't injured, sat up and looked around. He seemed to be in some sort of theater, a very big one too, although there were chairs missing from the rows of seats, dust everywhere, and the curtains were full of moth holes.

Harry was sitting on the stage. It was a moment before he noticed that he was not alone--Hermione was picking herself up, on the other side of the platform, near a rusty looking grand piano.

"Harry?" she said, "What's going on?"

"I haven't the foggiest," Harry replied, "You don't think this is some trick of Voldemort's, Do you? Or maybe we were killed in battle."

"Wonderful!" Said a voice. Harry spun around to see a girl with long, untidy dark hair emerge from behind the beat up curtain. "Finally, the entire cast is here! Well, not the entire cast, but everyone we happen to need for the first scene is here. At last we can start doing what we're supposed to be doing...but you don't know what that is, do you? We're putting on a play. It's meant to promote inter-story cooperation--"

The girl stopped talking as two people made their way down the aisle towards them. One was a girl carrying a notebook. The other was a man, perhaps in his late thirties. There was something distinctly odd about him--he had long, slightly disheveled red hair, and his face was disfigured by three pale scars, which made him look as if his head had been smashed and glued back together again. However, the strangest thing about him was that he was carrying a penguin. It was one of the ones with bushy orange eyebrows.

"You've got to turn her back," he was saying, as he hurried in the girl's wake, "You said you wanted her to be a dance choreographer--"

"Of course I did," said the carrier of the notebook, "Don't you know that the play has got absolutely no dances in it? You see, I couldn't care less what she looks like, because there's nothing to choreograph. Hey, look, new people!"

"They don't look much like death eaters," Harry whispered to Hermione. She looked like she was about to reply, but the notebook less girl began talking again.

"Let me introduce myself. I'm Queen Duckweed of the Order of the Sparkly Shrubbery, almighty overlord of the Evil Salamanders from Pluto. I'm also your director. Nice to meet you both." She held out her hand, and they both shook it rather nervously. The girl turned to her companion. "This is Bob. She's the other director."

"Excuse me," said Harry, "But what exactly is going on? Where are we?"

"In a random, dilapidated theater, where else?" said Bob. She gave the man with the penguin a surprised look, as if she was noticing him for the first time. "Are you still here, Dustfinger? Don't you have something to do?"

"Who precicely is that?" Duckweed asked, pointing to the penguin, which squawked angrily.

"It's Roxane," Bob answered. She sounded annoyed. "I haven't a clue why you're so upset, Dustfinger, she looks loads better this way."

Dustfinger set the penguin down on the edge of the stage, where it fluffed itself up a bit before looking accusingly at Bob.

"Let's not argue over trivial details," Duckweed commented in an exasperated voice. "Now where were we? Oh yes, I was just explaining to you what's going on--"

"You turned my wife into a penguin, and you call that a trivial detail?"

"Yes we do. Perhaps you'd like to be turned into one too?" Said Bob, opening her notebook and taking out a pen.

"Um, not particularly."

"Then go away and stop bothering us."

Dustfinger gave them a defeated look before turning and disappearing into the shadows that veiled the other end of the theater.

"What are you looking at?" Bob said to Roxane the penguin. The bird shot her a hate filled glance before waddling off in the opposite direction.

Harry and Hermione watched the exchange with rather confused expressions on their faces. Duckweed seemed to notice.

"The basic idea is that people from your story, the Harry Potter books, have to act in a dramatization of this other story, called Inkheart. The people from that story are all on the crew. Of course, if any of you lot don't do exactly what we tell you to do, Bob turns you into a penguin as demonstrated just now."

"Except that Roxane didn't do anything bad. I was just kind of bored," Bob added.

"They're mad!" Hermione hissed.

"We are not mad!" Said Duckweed indignantly.

"We're just more or less insane," said Bob.

"Exactly," Duckweed agreed. Hermione rolled her eyes, but the infamous queen of the Sparkly Shrubbery didn't seem to notice. She went on. "Bob's got some scripts in her pockets, she'll give them to you. You can look at them for a bit before we run through the first scene. You don't have to commit it to memory, you can adlib the whole thing for all I care."

Bob handed them both greenish colored booklets before walking off in the direction that the penguin had gone.

Duckweed turned to leave, but stopped herself before saying, "Harry, you'll be playing the part of Dustfinger. Hermione, you can be Meggie. I'll be back in about five minutes with the rest of the crew." With that, the girl hopped off the stage and exited through a door to the left.

"So," said Hermione, "I'm Meggie and you're Dustfinger."

"Surely you don't intend to go along with this rubbish, do you?"

"I'd rather not get turned into a penguin, and I doubt they'll keep us here forever." She sighed, and flipped through the script.

"Wasn't that guy whose wife got turned into a penguin called Dustfinger?"

"Oh, I don't know. Leave me alone Harry, I'm trying to memorize this."

Harry was about to open his own script when he heard a slight scratching sound. He looked up to see yet another penguin appear from behind one of the seats. It wasn't Roxane--this one didn't have orange feathers above it's eyes, and it was slightly more scraggily.

Harry watched with interest as it looked around fervently. He got the distinct impression that the penguin was not doing what it was supposed to be doing, whatever that could be. Harry heard a door open somewhere, and the sound of voices. The auditorium was suddenly filled with people--they seemed to come out of hidden doorways all around the room. He looked for the sneaky penguin, but it was gone.

"You two should be back stage," said a girl he didn't recognize, "Come with me."

Hermione picked up her script and followed the girl as she pushed aside the curtain. Harry walked after them.

Behind the curtain was what looked like a half built set, although it was hard to tell exactly what sort of place it was supposed to be. Several people were pushing different objects around, and several other people were yelling at each other. Harry could see Bob talking to a woman with some sort of birthmark on her cheek.

"So which one of us are you supposed to be?" asked the girl. She was a little younger than him, with blond hair and blue eyes.

"I'm Harry Potter. I'm supposed to be someone called Dustfinger."

The girl looked at him for a moment, and then began to giggle hysterically. Harry had never been fond of girls who giggled too much. "What's so funny?"

"It's only that you're about twenty-five years younger than he is," she replied, still giggling. "Although I heard that Basta's going to be played by some lady, so it could be worse. I'm Meggie, by the way. Nice to meet you."

"Err, nice to meet you too."

"Harry! I knew you'd end up here!" said a familiar voice.

"Professor Lupin?" Harry looked up, confused, as his former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher walked up to him. "What are you supposed to be? I'm someone called Dustfinger."

"I'm someone called Mortimer. Look out, here comes that Duckweed character."

The girl with the hair-that-had-a-life-of-it's-own was indeed making a beeline for Harry. There was so much going on that he scarcely noticed when Lupin wandered off in the opposite direction.

"Harry!" called Duckweed, "There you are! I forgot to ask you something. It's legal stuff, I hope you don't mind. Do you feel comfortable getting hung from the ceiling thirty feet in the air, and getting your leg sliced open with a sword?"

"What?" said Harry.

"Oh, wonderful, that's just perfect," Duckweed continued, "And how do you feel about getting your heart ripped out by the white women? They won't be real white women, of course, we plan on using dementors. Bob's going to bleach them."

"Err…"

"Thanks for being such a good sport, Harry! I'm sure you'll do just fine. Here's Hedwig and a backpack."

"But what—" Harry started, but Duckweed had already disappeared.

"You should go stand over there," said Meggie. "I have to pull the curtain open because the ropes are all messed up." She darted away.

Harry moved over to the side of the stage. There was a loud scraping sound as a tall man in a blue-ish cloak pushed a heavy looking bench onto the stage. Hermione walked over and sat on it. As the man walked back, past Harry, he hissed "You're supposed to put the owl IN the backpack."

Harry decided to take his word for it. He tried desperately to get the bird into the satchel as Duckweed's voice sounded from the other side of the curtain.

"Alright, houselights dim!"

"I don't think Farid can hear you from up in that place where they control the lights from," said Bob.

"Somebody will have to go up and tell him then."

"I'll do it," came Meggie's voice.

"Okay, but hurry up."

Harry heard the sound of running feet, and then silence. Hedwig bit his finger. He wasn't entirely sure that the backpack was big enough for her to fit in, even if she did stop struggling.

After what felt like a half an hour, Harry heard the sound of running again.

"Farid says he can't figure out how to turn the houselights off, because there are to many little knobs and buttons," panted Meggie.

"Go back and tell him to fiddle around with it all until he gets it right," Duckweed answered impatiently. Harry heard Meggie run off again. Hedwig screeched and flapped her wings. Harry held her down, stroking her feathers to calm her.

After about fifteen minutes, the stage brightened up. It was filled with a dull, red-tinged light, which faded to purple, and then blue. After a second, it started to flash between complete darkness and blinding brightness. The lighting continued to change until the light disappeared completely and the stage was plunged into pitch darkness.

"Finally," said Duckweed. "Open the curtains now."

Harry heard a thump, followed by a string of curses.

"Rats," said Duckweed. "Now no one can see what they're doing. Farid! Make the stage lights dim! Don't turn them off!"

"He can't hear you, remember? We have to wait for Meggie to get back. Then we can send her back up to tell him," said Bob.

"And wait all that time? Hey you, Brianna! Go up and tell Farid to turn the stage lights on."

"I can't!" came a muffled reply. "I'm all tangled up in the lighting cables!"

"Untangle yourself then!"

Someone on the other side of the stage struck a match, and hushed voices could be heard.

"That cable goes under here, and over there…"

"There's one wrapped around your ankle…"

"She'll have to take her shoe off…"

"Stop it! You're strangling me!"

"Sorry, sorry… Pull that one in the other direction…"

Hedwig was beginning to get used to the idea of being stuck in a backpack. She was no longer struggling. Harry managed to get her to sit in the satchel, but it wasn't big enough to cover her head.

Harry once again heard the sound of running footsteps, followed by a thump and a yelp of pain.

"Stupid seat!" said Meggie's voice. "But now it's dark. Are you happy?"

"Not completely. We just need you to—"

"It's okay," said Brianna, "I'll do it. Thanks for the help, Cloud-Dancer."

"No problem, kid," said a man's voice, "Damn it, the candle just died."

There was yet another thud, and then the sound footsteps fading away into the distance. A few moments later, Harry once again heard the voice of Meggie.

"I can't find the stairs. How do I get onto the stage?"

"Don't. Wait until the lights come back on."

Time passed, as Harry sat in the dark. Finally, a single naked light bulb hanging from the vaulted ceiling ignited.

"That's much better," said Duckweed, "Alright, then, curtains!"

Meggie appeared onstage and took hold of the dusty red curtain on the left and pulled it aside.

"Excuse me," said Bob, "But both curtains are supposed to open simultaneously."

"Brianna's the one who opens the other curtain, and she hasn't gotten back yet."

"Just go and open the other one."

As the fair-haired girl pushed aside the moth eaten piece of cloth, Harry realized that Hermione had been waiting on her wooden bench for all this time.

"Action!" cried Duckweed. She was sitting in the first row of seats, next to Bob.

Hermione straightened up and said "I always—"

"Hold it!" yelled Bob, "This can't be right. Meggie's supposed to be sitting on her bed."

"She is," said Duckweed.

"That's not a bed, it's a bench."

"I know. We couldn't find a bed light enough to get on the stage quickly, so we're using a bench."

"But—"

"Shut up and stop complaining."

Bob looked insulted, but she fell silent. Hermione started over.

"I always put the book I'm reading under my pillow at night. Sometimes I can hear it whispering to me in my—"

"Hello, what did I miss?" Brianna said, pushing her way through a heavy looking door at the back of the auditorium.

"Absolutely nothing," said Duckweed.

"Start again Hermione," said Bob.

"I always put the book I'm reading under my pillow at night. Sometimes I can hear it whispering to me in my dreams."

Hermione stood up and looked around. "You know, it would help if there was a window I could look out of."

"Was that in the script?" asked Bob.

"Just pantomime looking out of a window," Duckweed said, ignoring Bob.

Hermione gazed purposefully into space. She suddenly took on a surprised look, and ran over to Lupin, who had slipped onto the stage and was standing behind her.

"Professor—I mean, um, what's your name again?"

"Mo."

"Alright then, Mo! There's someone out in the yard!"

"Gee, I wonder who it is."

"I don't know. Let's go see."

They pretended to walk downstairs.

"This is like, so cheesy," said Bob. "Can't we cut that scene?"

"If you cut all the cheesy scenes, there won't be any left," said Duckweed.

"Why does this play have to be so lame? I mean, the book wasn't lame."

"Because I wrote the script. If you don't like cheesy plays, you can write another one yourself."

"It's a bit late for that."

Harry jumped as the man in the blue cape tapped him on the shoulder. "You should probably go on about now. And put the backpack on."

Harry carefully slung the backpack over his shoulder and walked out into the small circle of light provided by the lone light bulb.

"Um, hello Dustfinger," said Lupin.

"Hi, err, Mortimer."

"Silvertongue."

"You said your name was Mortimer!"

"You're supposed to call me Silvertongue."

"Whatever you say, Silvertongue." Harry hesitated, not knowing what to do next.

"Hang on a second!" shouted Bob, "That kid can't be Dustfinger! He's only sixteen and his hair's the wrong color."

"They both have scars on their faces. It's a perfect match."

"But Dustfinger isn't supposed to be the same age as Meggie! His daughter is older than her!"

"Oh come on. You can't expect me to think of everything. Both of them are equally angsty, and both of them have large dents in their heads. Oh yes, and neither of them have parents! You can't argue with that, can you?"

"Yes I can."

"Oh, be quiet." Duckweed turned back to the stage. " Do something, will you? This is getting boring."

"Hello Dustfinger," said Hermione.

"Hello Herm—I mean Meggie."

"Go away, Meggie," said Lupin.

"I don't feel like it."

"I don't care. Go away."

"Go away to where?"

"I don't know. Just out into the hallway, or something."

"We don't have a hallway."

"Pretend that we do."

Hermione walked over to the other side of the stage. Lupin turned to Harry.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm not sure," said Harry. "I was in the middle of a battle, and then I sort of woke up here."

"No, I mean in the play. Are you going to warn me about something?"

"I don't know. I didn't exactly read the script."

"Just so you know, you're here to warn me about this evil guy called Capricorn, except not really because you're working for him, but I don't know that yet."

"Um, okay. So I'm warning you that Capricorn is working for me but not really because he doesn't know that yet?"

"Close enough."

Suddenly, a loud and angry sounding squawk was heard, and Roxane the penguin waddled onstage. She was closely followed by the dodgy-looking penguin Harry had seen earlier. The two birds scrabbled around—The scraggly one seemed to be chasing the one with the orange eyebrows.

Before Harry had a chance to take in what was happening, the real Dustfinger had appeared on stage, accompanied by the real Meggie. Both of them were carrying brooms.

"Leave her alone, you bully!" Meggie yelled at the penguin that wasn't Roxane. She attempted to smack the beat up looking bird with her broom. Roxane hid behind Dustfinger's boot.

"What are you trying to do to that innocent penguin?" said Bob.

"He's not innocent, he's Basta," said Meggie.

"At least we think he is," said Dustfinger. "His tail feathers are all burnt off."

"Basta's been turned into a penguin?" asked a surprised sounding voice from somewhere backstage.

"Basta and the rest of the world," said someone else.

"Will someone get Basta off the stage so that we can continue?" asked Duckweed.

After Meggie and Dustfinger had chased the bedraggled bird into the dressing rooms with the help of their brooms, Harry and his former teacher continued their conversation.

"So Capricorn is looking for me?" said Lupin, "Oh no, I wonder what I should do. I be you want me to bring him the Book."

"What book?"

"You know. THE Book."

Harry began to pick up the hint. "Erm, I want you to bring Capricorn the book."

"This is getting a bit dull," said Duckweed. "Can't we just skip to the part where Dustfinger leaves?"

"Go away, Harry," said Bob.

"Goodbye, Dustfinger."

"Goodbye Professor Silvertongue."

Harry walked out of the light, as Hedwig fidgeted in her backpack. Meggie, Dustfinger, and the man in the blue coat were sitting in folding chairs next to the curtain—all three of them were shaking with stifled laughter. Harry watched as Hermione walked back over to Professor Lupin.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Nothing much. Go to bed," Lupin replied.

"Alright," said Hermione.

"That couldn't have been much worse," said Duckweed. "I said you could adlib stuff, but I expect you all to be a bit more enthusiastic."

"I'm sure they'll all do their best in the future," said Bob, "Would someone show the Harry Potter characters where the dormitories are?"

"I'll do it. Come on, you lot," said the man in the blue coat. He walked over to the door Harry had assumed led to the dressing rooms.

"Oh, I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Mo. That is, Mortimer, Silvertongue, Bluejay, whatever. I've got so many pseudonyms, I'm beginning to loose track. Here we are, then."

The man led Harry, Hermione, and Lupin into a very, very long, narrow hallway, lined on both sides with doors.

"We don't get to sleep in actual beds," said Mo, "We just get sort of closet sized vault things with coffins in them. There are nametags on them, so you can find yours. They're alphabetized. Well, good luck, and goodnight. I have to finish building a car by tomorrow morning." With that, he disappeared back the way they had come.

The hallway, Harry noticed for the second time, really was incredibly long, and incredibly narrow. He couldn't see the end of it, and there was only room to walk down it single-file.

Quite awhile later, Harry and Hermione reached the Hs, but something was not going according to plan. There was a door labeled "Hermione", as well as an alcove containing a large, sparkly, jewel encrusted birdcage marked "Hedwig", but there was no "Harry".

"Maybe they used your last name," said Hermione, reading his thoughts.

"Yeah," he said, starting down the hall again.

What felt like over an hour later, Harry had reached the place where the P section would be, but all he found was another alcove, containing a pair of massive filing cabinets labeled "Pomegranates" and "Pomeranians".

Beginning to get worried, he decided that his name must have been put in the wrong spot, and hiked all the way back to the entrance to the hallway, determined to look at each door in turn. Luckily, just after "Basta" he found "Boy Who Lived".

"Those girls sure like to make life difficult," he thought, opening his door.

Inside, he found a small, box-like room, containing a wooden, coffin-shaped box stuffed with blankets and pillows, as well a wooden chest labeled "Costume an' props fo' Dusty—Give two HP." Inside, he found a beat up looking pair of jeans, a beat up looking t-shirt, a beat up looking black and red cape, a wine bottle that contained lighter fluid, a bundle of unlit torches, and an assortment of switchblades.

Harry put the objects back in the box and lay down in his coffin. He was careful not to let the lid close on him.