Title: A Bit of Real-Time Magic

Pairing: Sam/Roxanne

Author: Lovisa (lowi)

For: Blue (BlueEyes444)

Message: Dedicated to Blue, who is one of the most amazing people I've ever met. Her kindness is way above me.

This is, obviously, a crossover between Supernatural and Harry Potter, and thus this is AU, as these series aren't rather compatible with each other. But, as the timelines in these two worlds doesn't make sense, in this story (saying that Roxanne wouldprobably not have been very old in 2008/09, when season four takes place for Sam and Dean), let's say this is AU in the AU. Inception, anyone?

A woman in her early twenties walked out of a doorway in a dark alley. The way her high heels clacked on the cobblestone and the way the hair that she was pulling through her fingers smelled of expensive perfume and cigarette smoke made her seem very out of place.

Well, maybe not the cigarette smoke.

Anyway, she didn't cast any worried glances over her shoulders, she didn't fumble nervously with her handbag and clutch it to her upper body—she simply strode down the alley, not even bothering to look into the dark shadows, which everyoneknew was full of lurking creeps and dangerous creatures.

From the first look, one would have concluded that this woman was a foolish one—naïve, not yet scarred and scared by the big bad world. That was the simple conclusion, though. If one looked a little closer, thought a little harder, one would realize that she knew what she was doing.

Because no one jumped out in front of her feet, ready to stab her. No one tried to pull the handbag from her, which she dangled as a fisher would dangle his bait. No one walked up to her and pulled his fingers across her cheek, before pulling her with him into the darkness, covering her screams with a rough hand.

So, she had to know what she was doing.

And soon, she was gone into the shadows, as well, and her silent watcher wondered absentmindedly if he wasn't one of the lurking creeps in the darkness, the way he had stood gazing at her silhouette disappearing. Or maybe, the way she so easily had slipped into the black night might suggest that shewas the dangerous creature.

But never mind, it wasn't the dangerous creature he was in search of either way. It was the timid-looking man that at this very moment walked out of another door in that alley.

His prey. But that made it sound as though he was a predator, didn't it? Wasn't he supposedly doing justice here? So why was he calling the short man in front of him, the man who now had noticed him and looked up at him with big, scared eyes, his prey?

Maybe because it was too easy to kill him. Maybe because he just had to lift his hand and push that demon out of him, as if it didn't matter, as if he was nothing more than a defenseless piece of meat.

And maybe that was all he was. Maybe it made everything easier, to think like that. Maybe he then wouldn't feel the urge to throw up, when the man lay twisting at his feet, with eyes rolling in his head and mouth gagging as black smoke escaped him.

He swallowed hard and left the man's body—or the demon's shell—to its destiny. He wouldn't need to clean up, because he hadn't even touched him.

He walked away with long steps, tried to make them as brave and relaxed as the woman's strides he had seen before.

"Sam?" A grunt sounded and a figure peeked up from beneath his covers. It was dark in the room, and it was dark outside, and Sam wished he had never left his bed this night. "Wha—what's going on?"

"Nothing, I just couldn't sleep."

It was easy to lie, and it was easy not to think of how Dean's eyes were piercing arrows that would have been deadly if he had met them, and it was even easier to smile and crawl into bed, too.

"Ahmkss…," Dean mumbled, and he fell back onto his pillow with a thud. And the thud would echo in Sam's head, because of its likeliness with the man's body's thud on the cobblestone and because of its difference from the woman's clipping heels.

Falling asleep was hard, but not to dream of it was impossible.

The next time Sam saw the woman, he choked on his juice. And spilled it down Dean'sfront.

"What the hell are you doing, man?" Dean rose from the chair and began dabbing his shirt while rolling his eyes. "Can't you even keep your drink in your mouth?"

"Sorry, Dean," he answered, but instead of watching his brother's furious, desperate (and fruitless) tries to get his shirt clean again or at least appropriate, he couldn't draw his eyes away from the woman.

She sat with a steaming cup of coffee in front of her at a table to the left of them, and she was apparently caught up in a heated argument with the woman who ran the coffee shop. Her hands were flying around her head one moment, the next tapping impatiently with purple-colored nails against the table. Her eyes were one moment burning with anger, the next smirking with superiority, and the third open in tiredness and incredibility.

He was just about to hurry over there, some chivalrous part of him that was apparently too much of a curious knight in shining armor urging him to leave his brother, no matter in how much of a need hewas. But, as soon as he stood up, so did the woman, and she patted the shop-owning woman on her arm and gave her some sort of pitying smile, before clopping out the door.

The door stood open for a while, as if frozen in motion, letting a snowy wind enter. And Sam was as frozen where he stood, but then the wind that woke him came from his brother's icicle-clad voice.

"Sam, mind ignoring all the chicks for a moment?"

"Um…sure. Sorry," Sam hurried to say, and he went to the counter to get some napkins. He began wiping Dean's shirt off after giving some of the napkins to Dean.

"Who is she?" Dean asked when they sat down again, returning to their sandwiches. "And why haven't you told me about her? She's hot," he finished after taking an enormous bite.

"I actually don't know, Dean. I've not even seen her before," he answered, knowing that there was no other way for him to answer than like this. He couldn't tell that he had seen her before, because, well, then Dean would wonder why he had been out that night…and that he couldn't answer, obviously.

Dean pouted but with a smile underneath. "Well, let's hope we'll meet her again, huh?" he asked, leaning over the table and pushing a bit at Sam's shoulder.

"Yeah," Sam laughed, shaking his head a bit. "Sure."

He hadn't known it would take less than a couple of days to meet her again, so when he actually bumped into her in a small shop, he was so surprised to see her that he forgot all about manners.

"Oi, you, there!" he shouted from where he had stood choosing between frozen pizzas and frozen lasagna. She looked up and narrowed her eyes, and something told Sam that she was about to leave, so he hurried around the shelves and up to her.

"What?" she asked quietly when he arrived and grabbed her arm. "Who are you?"

"Umm, no one. Who are you?"

She looked at him with raised eyebrows, her lips beginning to quirk up in a smile. "No one? Well, that's a nice way of trying to get to know somebody." She shook her head and began to turn around.

"No, wait," Sam said quickly. "I am someone—okay, that was not a good way of beginning a conversation."

"It wasn't," she agreed, but she did stay, and Sam's heart made a little whoop.

"So, okay," he began, ruffling his hair. "Cat food, eh?" he asked, pointing at her tray which held two cans of cat food, one hunk of broccoli, and nothing else.

"Yes. That's not a good way of beginning a conversation either, you know." Her voice was so full of laughter now that Sam couldn't help but smile, too.

Sam shook his head, still smiling. "Yeah, sorry." He put his hand out, and she grabbed it and shook it. "Sam."

"Roxanne. Nice meeting you, Sam," she said, and she sounded as though she was repressing a giggle.

"Yeah, nice meeting you," Sam answered, and she dropped her hand. "So, where are you from? I mean, you're not from here, right?" He could hear that her accent was British, but that she fought hard to sound American.

She gave him a crooked smile. "It's that obvious, huh?"

Sam smiled back. "Sorry, yes."

She shook her head. "Ah, that's a shame. I'm from England, yes. And you?"

"I'm from…here," Sam answered with a nod, hoping she wouldn't ask him any questions about any see-worthy monuments or local stories. Then again, she didn't seem to be the average tourist, did she?

She nodded, and Sam suddenly noticed that they had arrived to the checkouts. "Aren't you going to buy something?" she asked innocently, and Sam just knewthat she was playing with him. Damn it.

"Oh, yeah…um, hang on," he said, and he hurried back to the fast food, micro-food stand, knowing that he could only hope she still would be there when he returned. He shook his head at his own stupidity—why hadn't he grabbed a carton before? Then this would never have happened, and then he would have paid right after her and left the shop together with her. Now, she could just as well be untraceable, gone.

And she was. He was at the checkouts again, and the girl behind the cash register looked at him with a bored expression.

He handed her the lasagna and a bill while asking, "Did you see where that woman went?" Because she very well could have, being right in front of the huge windows that looked out at the parking lot.

"Nope," she answered, pushing her glasses up a bit on her nose. "Sorry, sir."

Sam gave her a strained smile, grabbed his lasagna, and left.

Dean sat in the car—or rather, he had flipped his seat back and lay on his back with his eyes closed and hummed to the music.

Sam jumped in and slammed the door behind him, which caused his brother to jolt and rise quickly. "Hey, what's the matter?" he asked after getting over the shock.

"Did you have your eyes closed all the time?" Sam asked while opening the carton and slicing the lasagna with a plastic knife. He knew it was supposed to be warmed up, but they were on the go, they were about to leave this town, and they were about to leave Roxanne. The knife broke in two pieces.

"What's up? Don't press that hard, Sammy, now you broke it!" Dean narrowed his eyebrows and took the carton from his brother. "What happened in there? Oh, and, yes, I've been half asleep ever since you left; it's not my fault you kicked in your sleep last night so I couldn't get a minute of shuteye."

Sam leaned his head backwards and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I met that girl," he said finally.

"You did? Did you speak with her?"

"Yeah."

"That's great," Dean said, and Sam could see in front of his closed eyelids how he was bound to be beaming. "But hey, why are you so glum?"

Sam only grunted as an answer, well aware that Dean would realize it all anytime now. And indeed…

"Ah, it's because we're leaving. And you never got the chance to get in her pants." Dean quieted for a while, and then he spoke through a mouthful of cold lasagna. "Here, the rest is yours."

Sam opened his eyes and grabbed the carton from Dean. "Thanks. …ah, never mind, though, I mean, she was just a girl. Let's go now."

Dean looked at him for a while, clenched his jaw, and then turned the key. They drove away quickly, and Sam stared out the window, trying not to think of how she had smiled at him, until Dean's voice stopped his musings abruptly. "Aren't you going to eat that?"

Sam couldn't believe his eyes. She stood just across the street, taking out money from an ATM, and it should have freaked him out that he recognized her from behind, but it didn't. Because this was so preposterous that it dominated every other thought in his mind.

They were in a completely different town, they had driven two days to get here, and she stood there as if it was just how it was supposed to be.

He hurried across the street and put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you following me?" he said with a grin.

Her eyes narrowed in alert at first and she moved her hand to her pocket, and if he had had time he would have wondered why, but now he could only focus on his incredible luck. "You? I might want to ask you the same," she said when she had apparently realized who he was, as well, and her body had relaxed.

Sam laughed. "Or maybe we're both following each other, without knowing it."

She laughed, too. "We're going for cheesiness, huh? Well, my suggestion in that case is that it's destiny," she said with waggling eyebrows, and Sam thought he was melting, because he wasn't supposed to be this lucky.

"Sure, that sounds great," Sam agreed. "Ehm…so, what's brought you here?"

She gave him a long look. "I'm on a road trip," she answered at last. "And you?"

In that moment Sam knew she was lying, and that she already knew that Sam wouldn't answer her honestly, either. "Same here. With my brother."

She nodded slowly. They had walked away from the ATM and stood now in the bright sun, having to shade their eyes with their hands. She had wrinkles around her eyes right now from screwing up her eyes so hard. She opened her mouth, but at that exact same moment a car's horn sounded and they both jumped.

"Oh, it's my brother," Sam answered when he spotted the black car that now rolled into view.

She smiled. "I guess I won't detain you, then."

"No, no, it's okay. Are you staying here for long? You want to grab dinner sometime?"

She looked at him with slightly wider eyes, and then put on her gloves. "Sure. How about tomorrow night?"

"That's perfect." Sam spun around quickly and pointed at the first restaurant he could spot. "There? At seven?"

She smirked a bit. "Let's say we meet there. And then I think we can find something better."

"Ah, okay, then," Sam answered with a grin. Then Dean honked again. "See you then, okay!"

She nodded and walked away.

"Sam, for God's sake, will you focus? It's not meant to be me having to do the research, is it?" Dean said, exasperated, and he threw a pillow at Sam from where he lay in bed.

Sam sat by the computer but hadn't yet opened the internet browser, which Dean could see perfectly from where he was laying behind him.

"Seriously, dude. It's just a chick, she can't be that special."

"Sorry," Sam answered. "It's just, I don't know…"

"But we've been here nearly two days and you've done nothing but think about her—I swear, you're mad." Dean had risen from the bed, and now he stood leaning forward with his hands on the back of Sam's chair.

"Yeah, sorry," Sam repeated himself. "I'll concentrate now, okay?"

"Good," Dean said, patting Sam on his back. "You'll see her in just a couple of hours, so try and get something done," he said with a grin. "Because you can't expect meto do this, can you?"

Sam shook his head, a crooked smile hiding in the corner of his mouth. It was funny, the way she affected him. He couldn't even think of this, what he was hunting, why he was hunting it. She was the one and only thing on his mind. Now, though, he would focus.

Okay, what did he have? Murders in rooms with locked doors, where the victims hadn't a mark on their body…

He and Dean had first considered it being a ghost, haunting the buildings…but that soon made no sense, as there were murders all over the town. The funny thing was that in the last town they had been, they had seen the exact same pattern—random murders.

But the murders had abruptly stopped, and then he and Dean had seen the exact same thing here instead. They had left the other town, when nothing more seemed to happen there, and when they both got the feeling that these two places were connected, that it was the same case…

But as they landed nowhere, found nothing, and only seemed to run around in circles, they were beginning to tire. Already, after one day. Well, not really, because they had been in the other town for two weeks—and, besides, it was mostly Dean that was starting to become cranky and bored.

Sam sat by the computer for another hour, reading old articles in the local newspaper, searching for people that had witnessed something strange in the past, but he found nothing. Everything led back to these most recent murders.

"How's it going?" Dean asked suddenly, sitting down on the other side of the table.

"I can't find anything. I first thought I had something—it was a girl here that has a blog, and she wrote that she had seen someone in her garden, and I was certain it would lead somewhere, but then it ended in her friends playing a prank on her. I mean, seriously, how often are we working on a case where we have to read teenager's blogs, Dean?"

Dean bit his lower lip. "There is something really weird here, Sam, I know it."

"Yeah," Sam answered with a slow nod. "Maybe I should ask Roxanne, tonight."

Dean's eyes widened. "That's a great idea, really! I mean, she was back there as well, and now she's here…" He drifted off and looked down at his hands.

"What?" Sam asked sharply when Dean had opened his mouth a few times but not let anything come out.

"I don't know…isn't it weird?"

"What's weird?"

"That she's here, as well… I mean, of course it could be a coincidence, but…"

"Are you suggesting that she's the murderer?" Sam asked incredulously.

Dean shook his head rapidly. "No, no, of course not!" He looked up then, with his brow furrowed. "Or maybe."

"That's just bizarre, Dean," Sam stated. "I better get going now." He rose and shut his laptop.

Dean didn't leave his chair, but when Sam went out the door and was on his way to close it, Dean called after him. "Sammy, just be careful, okay?"

Sam sighed. "Sure, Dean. See you later." As he walked down the street with his hands in his pockets, he started to think, though. There actually was something wrong here, as he had thought. But it couldn't be that Dean was right, could it? Roxanne simply didn't seem to be of the…how to put it…killingtype.

"Hello, Sam!" He had arrived outside the restaurant and spotted Roxanne waiting for him.

"Hi," Sam answered. "How are you?"

"Fine, thanks. And you?"

Sam only nodded, watching her tangled dark red hair stream down her back as they began walking. It looked almost like blood.

"We're heading this way—there's a small restaurant where they have the most delicious pizzas," she said, speaking rapidly, and her heels clopped as much as that night Sam first had seen her.

"So, favorite subject in school?" Sam asked. They had finished their pizzas and were now awaiting their desserts. So far Sam had learned that she had an older brother named Fred, that she loved sports (though she didn't explain which sport was her favorite), that she had lots and lots of relatives, and that she had finished school three years ago and had wanted to go away this year to relax.

She looked at him with a fingernail (this time turquoise) tapping against the table. "Probably…science," she said at last. "You—oh, hang on." Her cellphone was ringing, and she flicked it open quickly. "Yes? …I see. I'll be there soon." She closed the phone and gave Sam an apologetic smile.

"What?" Sam asked and tried not to show the sinking feeling in his stomach.

"I'm so sorry, Sam, I have to go. It was really fun tonight; we should do it again." After she stood, she hesitated, leaned over the table, and pecked Sam's cheek. "See you."

Sam smiled. "Yeah, sure."

"Hey, Sam!" A car drove to a screeching stop just next to Sam, who was walking next to the street on his way back. "Jump in, quick!"

"Dean? What are you doing here?" Sam asked as he opened the car door.

"Hurry!" Dean sped up even before Sam had had time to close the door properly. "I listened to the police radio, and there's been another murder, so I figured that if we hurried up, we might get there in time to see something."

"Oh, great."

"How did your date go, by the way?" Dean asked lightly as he turned around a corner.

Sam shrugged. "Okay, I guess. She left before dessert, but—well, before that, all seemed fine."

"She left?" Dean asked, but Sam hadn't time to answer, because they arrived at the address and it was completely quiet. No police cars, no light, no nothing. "It's here, I know it," Dean said quietly, and he got out of the car.

Sam followed him with the inkling that something was really wrong. There wasn't a sound to be heard except from the gravel that crunched underneath their feet.

They entered the house through the already-busted door. At first sight, it seemed to be pitch-black in there, but then, when their eyes had gotten used to it, they saw light peeking out from beneath a door to the left of them.

Sam opened it, while Dean had his gun at ready.

Then everything happened so quickly, and Sam understood nothing. All of a sudden there was a beam of flashing lights, two twirling shapes in front of him, and the next thing he knew, he lay on the floor rubbing his forehead.

"Roxanne?" he asked when he recognized the tangles on the woman's back in front of him. "It was really you?"

"What do you mean?" she asked when she had turned around. "Oh, and sorry about that, it'll stop bleeding soon." Her voice was harsh, rapid, not at all soft and warm as it had been before.

Sam looked at the hand he had been pressing against his head, and she was right; it was covered in blood. What had really happened when they burst in? And—wait, where was Dean?

"It's okay, your brother is taken care of. He was…hit a little harder. But he's resting in the other room—as I said, it's okay."

Because that made sense. "What's going on, Roxanne?"

She looked at him for several seconds with eyes that seemed to be on fire. "It's a long story," she said finally, and she sat down on the floor next to him, cross-legged.

"I'm sure you'll have time to tell me."

She nodded, watching him intently with her chin resting in her hand. "Sam…I'm a witch. I can do magic."

What the…? "What?"

She put her hand into her pocket, hesitated, and then she revealed a wooden stick. Sam was going to say something, but she stopped him. "Wait, look here." She whispered something, and suddenly a piece of paper that lay on the table in the room (which apparently was some sort of living room) folded itself into a small bird and flew over to Sam.

Sam couldn't believe it. She was some sort of…creature, she had to be—evil; she was what Dean and he were hunting all the time, it didn't make sense, he couldn't think clearly…evil, a monster.

"It's okay, Sam. I'm not bad. There's a whole world of people like me—or, the whole world is filledwith people like me."

"What did you do to me?" Sam asked, because he couldn't comprehend that about the whole world; it was too surreal.

"Oh, I just Stupefied you. And you fell backwards and hit your head," she answered matter-of-factly.

"Ah," he nodded eventually, even though he felt like running away from there. Because no matter how scary the creatures they had seen were, none had seemed so normal and seemed so good, as Roxanne actually did.

Suddenly the door swung open, and a blonde man entered. "Roxie, what are you doing?" he asked when he presumably had taken in the situation. "Weren't we going to go?"

"It's okay, Louis, I'll be there in a minute." She looked sternly at the man, who raised his eyebrows but closed the door.

"Who is he?" Sam asked.

"He? Oh, that's Louis. My cousin. Anyway, how do you feel about me being a witch?"

"Does it even matter what I feel?"

Roxanne giggled. "Guess not."

"But what are you doing here?" Sam asked, finally remembering the (well, not oddestanymore) question at hand.

"Same reason as you, I believe. Those murders, Sam. And, by the way, you don't have to think of that case anymore. It's solved, okay?"

"'Okay'?" Sam repeated. "What, you, er, 'magic-ized' the murder and now everything's fine?"

Roxanne laughed again. "The woman who performed those murders was one of our kind, and we've now sent her to jail. So there's really nothing to worry about, Sam."

Both of them fell in silence. Sam felt, in a way, even more confused now. Or…that wasn't the right term. Freaked out, that was it. So, here he sat with a witch. And in this case it was a real witch, not like those demon possessed women that had sold their souls; this was a witch, born with magic. And from the way she spoke, there was an entire community with wizards and witches.

He rose, quickly.

"What are you doing?"

Sam breathed in heavily. "I have to get Dean and get out of here." He didn't know why, but this whole situation was really scaring him.

"Sorry, Sam, you can't. Not yet. I'm so sorry it had to end like this. I would have hoped we had met somewhere else, in another universe or something." She had risen, too, and now she fingered her stick again.

"What are you doi—"

"Obliviate!"

Sam opened his eyes when someone hit him on his cheek. "Hey, wake up!"

"Dean?" Sam asked, rubbing his forehead. Hey, was that…blood? "Where are we?"

"Don't you remember?" Dean furrowed his brow and helped his brother up. "Here, take this and wipe that off."

Sam did as he was told. The blood was dried. How long had he been unconscious?

"We were working on that case with the murders and got here, and you were knocked out—it wasn't anything supernatural going on here, just a couple of…er…normal steroid-hyped-up guys who had lost it and were chasing down their old girlfriends. They had keys to all the places; the police told me, so that's why the doors were locked."

"Oh," Sam said as his fingers closed around a paper in his pocket.

"C'mon, we better leave this place now." Dean walked out through the door.

Sam took out the piece of paper. It was crumpled, but it had once been folded as a miniature bird, and when he looked at it, he felt as though he had forgotten something really important.

Then Dean honked, so Sam threw the bird in a dustbin next to the drawer and joined his brother in the car.

And in another car, miles and miles away, a woman lit up a cigarette and wondered what could have happened, if things could have been different.

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