Chapter 5

Reintroducing the world

A/N: Cue lights.

Enter cast.

Raise curtain.

And…

From the top; take two.

Lily Rose Evans had once thought that being told 'you're a witch but that's okay' had been the strangest thing she had ever heard (though, Severus had at the time, been the strangest person she had ever seen, so it hadn't really mattered that he was saying bizarre stuff). After that, strange had become her constant companion as a mud…muggle-born in the magical world. Anywhere from wand waving and saying a silly word to using plants she didn't know existed to create odd elixirs book ended a wondrous experience, and trying to dodge the occasional prank with Sev and sometimes Regulus Black had been interspersed by lovely sessions of study and gossip in Gryffindor tower.

Then it all went down the Lou.

The problems with Sev had on whole been present in some form or another before Hogwarts, with some of the lesser details filled in after a long tenure in Slytherin house. The snippiness and suspicion were a side effect of living with a drunkard father that had a propensity to attack anything that stood out as abnormal. Superiority was almost a necessity to keep Severus from the ledge. The fascination with the dark arts had sprung up from a combination of the former and a simple love for knowledge. Fitting in with the local cliques were, unfortunately, the fault of both those idiot gits, Lily's common euphuism for the Marauders, and those jerks, the junior deatheater brigade.

Slowly, isolated from his only friend, surrounded and almost certainly bullied by blood bigots, ensnared by his own ploys for survival in a hard house, Severus started to change. A comment there, a snide word here, Lily could almost plot points to the events leading up to tonight. But what had really done it in had to be, unquestionably, been the Marauders. The Marauders had formed from four friends that hadn't had anything in common, with the sole purpose of tormenting anyone that didn't meet a certain standard of being. I.E. not being a Slytherin. Their actions had gotten so bad that at one point Lily had tried to call them out, but had only managed to secure a minor detention for 'disturbing the peace'. She hated them.

It had only gotten worse from there. More and more of those idiot gits pranks had begun to center around Sev, ostensibly because he was the worst of the worst, actually because he was so close to Lily. James and Sirius began tormenting him in the halls, dueling whenever they could or felt like it, and generally being jerks to Severus. It had all accumulated today though, with one word and a duel on Hogwarts tallest tower. Lily had been horrified when Nancy Torres told her that the idiot gits had left at nearly midnight and had torn after them, only to find that they had cast some sort of darkness spell and were hiding from her. When she had seen Severus hiding there, having attacked her, it…it…

Then everything promptly stopped making sense (for a magical school anyway) as she and nearly everyone there started to disappear into a swirling storm of sapphire clouds that sprang out of nowhere and the next thing she knew was that she was standing, disoriented, on a massive, flying mountain looking for all the world to see like the worlds most confused knight. Not too long after that, she Severus and Lupin had been surrounded by giant flying bugs that literally came out of nowhere. Seriously, one minute nothing, the next minute BUGS!

Even stranger events came to pass when the haphazard trio suddenly went from whole and solid to none-existent, and back again, before falling out of tubes and apparently knocking out a blond kid (a muggle named Jeremy). So Sev, whom had been the one to knock Jeremy, had been tasked with carrying him without magic to the exit of the factory they had wound up in. The minutes after that though were little more than a blur, as the Chinese girl, Yumi, had apologized profusely. Who knew you could lose your memory from something as simple as a blow to the head?

Not too long after she woke up, Lily had been taken into a room with to other boys who introduced themselves as Odd Della Robbia and Ulrich Stern. Upon finally making sure they weren't playing with her or joking about their names, Lily decided the best course of action would be to tell the pair absolutely nothing and hope that at least some from the ministry would be able to track them down and obliviate them. After that thoughanother teen, Jeremy, came back in to tell her that she had been simultaneously thrown forward in time and into a different universe. While his explanation lacked a lot of detail, she could reason that it wasn't all that impossible.

Magic. God she loved/hated it.

So once the interrogators had decided that they couldn't get her to tell them anything, they also casually informed her that she was speaking perfect French even though she didn't know a word of French. Confusion from language dissonance aside, Lily was more intent on making sure that Sev and Lupin were okay then playing twenty questions, and proceeded to mildly reprimand the French boys before being unceremoniously removed from the room and handed a bar of soap. "For your mouth"-said Odd.

How dare him!

Outside the room, Lupin and Severus had been callously laid against a wall. Before Lily could start to try to shake them awake, Lupin was frog marched into the room to begin the process of information extraction again. Lily spent some time trying to wake Severus, but after trying and failing to shake him conscious, Lily had to admit defeat. Severus was a heavy sleeper and rarely could she get a raise from him if she didn't try slapping him. Severus may have been an arse, but that didn't mean she had to be rude to him as well.

Not that she wouldn't make him regret what he had done. Severus would need to give an arm and a leg to get back in her good graces and that would be if she was feeling generous.

Lupin took his time, explaining everything in the great, exacting detail he was famous for, slowly getting to the point that he, Lily and Severus were magical, placing numerous qualifiers, and generally explaining things far better than the author could.(A/N: I love hanging lampshades.)

Until Ulrich had asked about James, Sirius and Regulus. Lily's opinion of the Idiot gits notwithstanding, she had actually liked Regulus a bit. He had a level head and wasn't nearly as prone to slipping into blood-bigot mode as the rest of Slytherin house. She could even deal with him when he did, primarily because all they were and only would ever be study-buddies. The fact that he had vanished into the 'Digital Sea' as Jeremy had put it, had stung.

While the bros. cop went at Lupin, Jeremy explained why he believed that she and company had arrived in their universe and not in the future as she expected was because of "Hypothetical Temporal Unmooring" whatever that was. Basically, their world had spat them out, and unable to return for the time they had been dumped into an alternate universe, slightly more advanced then here native 1975. Word of Jeremy said that the internet acted as, wait for it, a NET. Whatever an Internet was.

Eventually Odd and Ulrich let the near catatonic Lupin out of the room, and took Severus in. Lily smirked, knowing it would be awhile before they could wake him up. Lupin seemed shell shocked, but gave something approaching a smile when Lily patted him on the back. Presently, Severus awoke.

"Name?"

"Whaaah's going on?"

"Name please."

Lily resisted the urge to groan. Why oh why Sev.

"Ere, Severus Snape."

"Where do you live?"

"…Cokeworth, England."

"Really?"

Really?

"Yes, really," Severus growled. Semantics, Lily thought. All Slytherin's were prone to them.

"Well, the stupid muggle can't tell time, who knew?"

Lily eyed the door, and then tuned out the conversation in favor of shaking Lupin to health.

Her actions were in vane as Severus suddenly apparated out of the room, shocking Yumi. Severus apparated again, close enough to Lily to see his face screw up in pain from apparating twice in rapid succession. He grabbed Lupin from under the arms, but the agony of essentially being magically run over in short order and Lupin's dead weight dragged him almost to his knees. The door burst open across the small hall she, Yumi and everyone else was in burst outward, Ulrich and Odd coming out just spoiling for a fight. Lily, knowing what Severus would do though, beat them to the punch.

Slap! "What the bloody-".

Lily pulled out her wand and pressed it to Severus's neck. She was not in the mood for this. "Severus, shut. Up. And listen." Lily pocketed her wand and sat back down, settling Lupin with her. The blond seemed to be coming back alive in her care, obviously blinking back tears and sending Lily a forced smile.

"Thanks."

Lily was cut off by a strange jingle, sounding a little like an alarm clock under a blanket. Yumi pulled something out of her jeans and flipped a boxy object open. Her eyes widened comically at what she saw on the screen. "It's Aelita." She hissed. "She and William are awake!"

"So, let me get this right."

"For the fifth time tonig... today."

"We are in a different dimension."

Sigh. "You do this Lupin."

"But Lily-"

"But nothing, I don't feel like talking to him."

"He asked everyone else."

Lily nearly gave Lupin the evil eye, but caught herself with the thought that she could seriously hurt his chances at a full emotional recovery. He needed complete friendship now, and the only people that could reliably connect with him were her and Severus. So only she could be counted on to help him. So she contented herself to watch the rain water and sewage and the occasional rat race by in the crazy extensive sewers under Paris. The conglomerated group had set out from the massive Renault factory that the whole of a massive super computer and attending laboratory. Odd was currently acted as the trios guide, pointing out how they had found the factory, figured out the fastest and safest way to it were the surprisingly cramped sewers (at least by Parisian standards) and filling them in on smaller tidbits on the history of Lyoko, apparently created by one Franz Hopper. The fact that the trio was currently consisting of some of the smartest students in Hogwarts history made memorizing the information he had bombarded them with easy enough.

Ahead of them, Odd was now working with Ulrich to lever clear a sewer cover that they used to enter and exit the sewers at will. A cry of success suddenly echoed now the narrow chute the two shared, followed by a "Shout harder Odd, I don't think Jim heard you up there," and a "Oh well, you can thank me later for saving you from muscle tears later." Ulrich lowered himself down the chute to just below the sewer roof. "So, you wizards have ladders were you come from, or do you just levitate up everywhere?"

Severus sneered.

Lily groaned. 'Here we go again.'

"Of course we levitate. It's the first thing that we learn how to do in Slytherin house." Snape then took hold of the ladder and continued his tirade. "However, I don't feel that it would be prudent to show you, as I have no intention to waste my energies on show boating."

Ulrich looked Severus right in the eye from above and said, "So I can take as that no."

Everyone stifled a laugh at Severus's sudden shutdown, save the young wizard himself who simply made a rude gesture. Ulrich shrugged and started to climb. He was quickly followed by Sev, then Lupin. Lily climbed back to the surface after them, and after her were Yumi and finally Jeremy, who worked with Yumi to replace the manhole cover.

The septet had emerged in shady, exquisite woods that looked rather deep, but seemed to give way to a nearby courtyard. Lily strangled a yawn in her throat, the light leaking through the canopy only reminding her body how late she thought it was. She had gone from eleven o'clock at night to three thirty in the afternoon. Jeremy had mentioned that she would have to stay awake until nine to keep her body from falling into bad habits of exhaustion midday.

Ulrich now took them out of the woods, near a large Olympic running track that was attached to a four story building dotted with windows at regular intervals. He pointed to the building. "Pool house, change rooms and lifting rooms. Basically it's your all-purpose gym." He led them around the building, and pointed at another, near identical structure. "Dorms and boarding room. It's where you're going to sleep for the time being. Second floors the boys, third's for girls. The first-."

"Belongs to everyone that doesn't qualify to the first two." Odd broke in. Yumi helpfully walloped her friend.

"As I was saying," Ulrich continued, "The first floor in supply's, laundry, the showers, the infirmary and overflow classrooms. We're going to the infirmary."

Severus looked over himself and Lily. That Remus was not included was not lost on Lily. "We're healthy, you know. Why are you taking us to the infirmary?" He punctuated this last question with a slight sneer, as if to question Ulrich's and by extent Jeremy's judgment.

Ulrich grimaced a little, though less at the tone and more at the question. "Our friends, Aelita and William were hurt earlier today. We going to make sure that they're okay." Sev's angry sneer was also not lost on Lily.

Yumi seemed to take charge now, or maybe she was just anxious to help her friends enough that she too lead ahead of Ulrich. The continuous switching of authority implied that Jeremy, Odd, Yumi and Ulrich either regularly delegated different tasks to each other or had to true system of control, but just went with the flow of all things group wise. It wasn't all that unlike the Idiot Gits really. Sometimes Potter would be controlling Black, Lupin would take charge, or Peter would chime in with a funny little joke and bring attention to himself.

Lily's internal musing on the nature of the command structure of the self-proclaimed Lyoko warriors was cut by the infirmary. Walking in, she noticed that it seemed just a little crowded, with herself included, a total of ten people, Yumi obscured by a curtain in front of a bed. Two girls were on another bed, the first helpfully stretching out the seconds left arm, saying something about getting her blood circulating again. Most striking though was the second girl's hair, which was a completely natural pink.

"Sissi, you can stop that." The pinkette pulled her arm out of the grasp of Sissi, though it trumped a little uselessly to her side. She stood and smiled at the new arrivals. "So you're the ones William was talking about. Nice to meet you. I'm Aelita."

Severus, Lupin, and Lily all shared looks. Lily shrugged. "I'm Lily Evans, this is Remus Lupin and Severus Snape. Nice to meet you too Aelita."

"Who's that?" came an eerily familiar voice. A tall young man, looking a little like James Potter pulled back the curtain that had obscured a section of the room. Yumi had been out of sight behind it, along with… Regulus!

Lily barely wasted a moment tackling the only other Slytherin she liked with Severus. "Oh God Regulus we thought you were dead." The rest of her and Severus's speech dribbled off into unintelligible babbling as they hugged there supposedly dead friend.

"Gah, ugh, help, Help." Regulus struggled against their arms, only managing to get a clear breath when the ecstatic magicians were pulled off him by Odd and Ulrich. He tried to bring himself to his feet, but the fatigue from the earlier incident and the sudden attack left him needing the potterish looking boy to pull him up. "(huff) Who's (huff) Regulus? I'm (huff) Will Dunbar." William managed to finally catch his breath and stand on his own. The helper boy looked at Sissi for a queue on what to do.

Jeremy frowned and asked, "Sissi, we're going to need you to take David outside for a moment. You know, computer stuff." Sissi looked put out for a moment, but nodded anyway and stood and walked, taking her boyfriend David with her. For his part, David gave a royal wave from the doorway and stepped out cheerfully enough.

Lily looked over William quickly. He had the same high-noble chin that he and Black did, same casual handsomeness, similar facial expressions even. But his height was all wrong, and he seemed, how she would put this, a little more filled out then Reg. So in conclusion- not Regulus Black. "Um, sorry about the confusion man. Didn't know."

William's face twitched. "Never mind, it's not your fault." He gave a light smile. I'm just not used to being tackled by guys. Girls on the other hand…" Any further potential flirtation was headed off by Lily Evans's patented Glare of DOOOOOM. William turned to Jeremy, words rushing out to avoid decimation. "So Jeremy, why were me and Aelita out for so long?"

"Huh." Jeremy looked surprised at being included in an otherwise unrelated conversation. "Oh, well, you and Aelita were most strongly affected," He stopped to inspect his laptop, "Because you two are the most strongly linked to Lyoko."

Beat.

"What?"

Jeremy blushed at the evident confusion his words had created. "The super-computer more or less generated a massive Return to the Past, which continuously sent us right to the moment we were in. Because of the time you spent on Lyoko, Aelita actively for one year and you under Xana's thrall for nine months, you and Aelita were the last to awaken. In contrast, I was almost never on Lyoko, and Odd Ulrich and Yumi were alternating for roughly equal periods. Thus, you and Aelita were unconscious for the longest period of time." Jeremy sent his arms together and looked at the now slightly less bewildered room.

Odd finally chimed in, "This is why we call him Einstein. You can't tell if it's French or German he's speaking." Ulrich rolled his eyes as Yumi and Aelita chuckled, Yumi at the joke, Aelita at Jeremy. The wizards just stared.

When the laughter finally died off, Aelita looked at Jeremy. It wasn't an exactly hostile look, it was more a 'the sight of you pains me' look. Kind of like how Lily was looking at Sev right now. "So, is Xana back? Is it really back?" The words hung heavily in the air, everyone, even the magicians that didn't quite understand what Xana was, leaned in to hear Jeremy's answer. Jeremy adjusted his glasses, the glare of the sun covering his eyes. "Yes, Xana has returned."

Silence reigned for a moment. Than…

"Let's get to work then." Yumi said.

The ever expanding darkness enveloped James Potter. James looked left, right, up, down and straight ahead, but not backwards. He didn't need to look back to know that there was darkness there to. So really, the only thing that was keeping him from going nuts was the near constant voice of one Sirius Black, also known as Padfoot. Right now though, Padfoot was starting to get on his nerves.

"I mean, come on, how could you just let Snivallus hurt Lily like that. Come one Prongs! She is your girlfriend, practically. And you didn't protect her!"

"All right already, I get it Padfoot, I'm a bad boyfriend. Can you now just SHUT UP!" James barely kept himself from seizing his friend and giving him a sound thrashing.

"Okay, okay, I get it." Sirius sounded, for a moment like he was repentant. "I just want out of here." The fear and ache in his voice was evidence enough for James not hit his brother. "So you got any ideas."

"No."

"Great."

Beat.

"HELP!"

James jumped from his friends voice, surprised by the sudden noise. After a moment, he realized his friend reasoning and raised his voice as well, crying out to the darkness for there salvation. Their shouting went unheard for a moment until.

"CRASH BANG FWOOSH Sonova- STAMP STAMP STAMP."

James and Sirius exchange unseen perplexed looks. After a moment though, Padfoot raised his voice. "Excuse me." For a moment there was silence.

"What is it? What are you doing here?" A grandiose, booming voice echoed in the air. Sirius paused and said "Who is this."

"Who am I, well who am I, I'm, wait I got it, I'M GOD!" The voice declared. James rolled his eyes.

"If your god, then what am I thinking?" James called up. The voice chuckled at the tone.

"Well, I've only now gotten used to being a god, so let me see. Myu myu my." James and Sirius stared at the invisible voice. "The sound effects help with the appearance the voice commented. Hum." The voice's 'hum' reverberated through-out the space. After a moment the unseen figure completed its contemplation and said: "You Sirius Artemis Black, are thinking of a motorcycle, and your desperate wish to own one." A quiet gasp rose at the proclamation. "And you James Charlus Potter, want to see one Lily Rose Evans in a bikini."

Now Sirius laughed at his friends expense. James rolled his eyes again, only slightly convinced. "Okay, if you're a god-."

A light went on in front of James and Sirius, unveiling their most deepest desires. "I could give this to you both, and more." The god proclaimed this with a hint of smugness, while both teenagers raced to the light, drooling slightly over the gifts. "But," the god said, and it was a specific but, "I will require something of yours."

Sirius and James now properly shared looks. "Um, what?" James asked.

The light went out.

"YOUR SOULS!" The God roared.

Somewhere in the digital sea, a person stirred, a stood up.

"Hello? Is anybody out there!?" Regulus Black shouted.

A/N: Six months. I am so, so sorry. Still I'mmmm baaack!