Harry staggered, his mind reeling from a sudden overload of information.

A walkthrough? Quests and Relationship scores and spell lists and-

Harry didn't remember collapsing, but the next thing he was aware of was being sprawled on the ground, a cold stone floor under his cheek while the world spun around him.

Eventually he managed to put the world back in a managable order. Gravity pulled him this way, which meant that sitting up would be that way. Staring straight ahead, Harry saw shapes that he had trouble putting in any recognizable pattern.

Eventually the world swam back into focus he realized he was staring at one of the beds in Gryffindor tower.

So that had worked, at least.

What's going on? Harry asked himself as the floor spun underneath him. I was in the magicless world, then I apparated and experienced niffliwf-

When Harry regained consciousness, he realized his body had collapsed to the ground again. His hands and face were touching the cold floor.

Okay, Harry woozily thought to himself. Don't think about it. Got it.

Harry dragged himself to his feet and stumbled over to his old bed. It was perfectly made and devoid of any occupants. Harry collapsed onto it, kicking up a "whoomph" of air. Face-down in the bed, Harry let his mind drift as he pretended everything was normal.

Harry may or may not have fallen asleep in that bed. Either way, several hours later he was wide awake and feeling much better.

Okay, he thought to himself, Let's go win this game.

Harry walked down a hallway, turned a corner, and stopped.

And stared.

"Okay", Harry said to himself. "That's new."

The corridor continued. The floor did not. An entire segment of the floor was missing from where the floor should have been. In its place was a black emptiness. Several feet beyond that, the floor resumed existence as if nothing was wrong.

Harry carefully approached the irregular rectangle missing from the ground. He stretched one foot out over the emptiness and slowly lowered it, being careful to keep his center of gravity over the solid portion of the ground.

His foot descended past where the ground should have been. This simple fact caused a shot of adrenaline to course through Harry's system. He flung himself backwards to make sure he didn't fall in. Harry's breathing came hard and his pulse pounded in his body.

Harry got down on his hands and knees and approached the empty section of floor again. He reached out slowly with his hand and felt where the floor should be. His hand met with no resistance. He slowly extended his hand into the inky void until he was flat on his stomach with his arm fully extended, but he didn't feel anything.

Harry pulled his arm back, a mere stump protruding from his robe sleeves. Harry screamed.

Then his hand popped out from within the robe sleeve and he laughed, waggling his fingers. Harry had just played a practical joke on himself.

Hilarious.

Harry felt the edge of the floor with his hand. The floor tiles were somehow sheared away, but Harry couldn't feel their sides. Instead, there was just a simple resistance that refused to let Harry's hand go any further. It reminded Harry of when he'd attempted to leave King's Cross Station, but this time he was just being prevented from moving his hand sideways through solid ground.

A thought came to Harry, unbidden. Did that mean that this same unknown force was keeping Harry from falling through the ground, everywhere here at Hogwarts? Harry shuddered and put the thought out of his mind. That couldn't possibly be right.

Harry stood up. He might be able to jump the hole, but there were other paths he could take. Besides, Harry did not want to find out what would happen if he misjudged his jumping ability and fell into that black nothingness.

The path he'd been exploring would have taken him to the Astonomy Tower. With that option closed for now, Harry decided to head to the Great Hall. On his way a text box popped up, but the message inside it was unlike any he'd seen before.

"Hint: Try eBʝøÑ0*Ȍɖɋ£ȝťÅú ʠŜƬŪʔDž+ɗǛľŹğɗS˦ƞȑůeeeee"

The skin on the back of Harry's neck crawled and his hair stood straight up. Something was wrong here. Something was very, very wrong.

Harry said "Okay", but the text just scrolled and more gibberish appeared.

"eeeeeeeeee._eeeeeeeeɝʡķǐǖ,nÑˁ©ǖōȧȮǙ£C
ʾǺ
Ö
Ă˟Sݬr}çrrrrrrrrrrrrÆĹ÷˭ʰÎČĠʯȯºEƞÛƣ;Ö*Ȑ˹ƶ±Ɏóɺ˱ŧƀåiŝʀĶ˻ʇǕɧɰœ¿ˮŔƘʦĔʑčʒLȐ ĎâŽĞʈȞšɈȡɢɯƖǦijƜţ"

"Okay! Fine! Cancel! Accept! Decline! I'm done! Go away!"

Harry tried as many synonyms for "okay" as he could think of, panic rising inside him as the text just kept scrolling. Finally, the text box disappeared and the text with it.

"Phew," Harry said.

On his way to the Great Hall Harry saw an oversized treasure chest with a large padlock on it. It was just sitting out in the middle of the corridor. Harry thought he remembered something about such a chest-

A sharp pain lanced through Harry's head and he briefly saw double. Harry staggered and leaned on a nearby wall to keep from falling over.

"Alohomora," Harry croaked, waving his wand in the chest's general direction. The pain eventually receded and Harry looked at his wand, groggily wondering why he had taken it out. Harry had no idea what he had just tried to do, or why. Confused, Harry put his wand away and started walking towards the Great Hall again.

Behind Harry the chest remained, locked and unmoving.

Along the way to the Great Hall Harry passed a drawbridge that was stuck in the "up" position, three dirty suits of armor, and what looked like a neon green giant booger that completely engulfed a doorway.

Each time Harry passed one of these his headache started up again. Harry ignored it all and continued walking to the Great Hall.

If he had been thinking more clearly he might have realized that none of these features had been in the Hogwarts-that-was, and that while the general topography of Hogwarts might be the same, many of the fine details were radically different.

As it was, though, he was busy repressing a large amount of information in an instinctive effort to keep it from overwhelming his conscious mind. Perhaps we can forgive him a little short-sightedness.

Harry finally arrived at the Great Hall. It appeared that a Sorting Ceremony was taking place.

Harry cautiously approached. It couldn't be the same Sorting Ceremony that he had left... could it?

Harry walked to the Gryffindor table, looking for Ron or Hermione. One of the prefects stood up, blocking his way. "No, this is the Gryffindor table." he said. "The Hufflepuff table is over there!"

The prefect pointed to the Hufflepuff table. Harry tried getting around the prefect, but the same invisible force prevented him from getting any closer.

Harry sighed and approached the Hufflepuff table. One of the student turned to face Harry. Only, not all of the student turned. Some of his bones stayed exactly where they were, while other bones moved to face Harry. The skin itself stretched like some horrible taffy, leaving a distorted monstrous face facing Harry.

"Harry! Hey Harry!" the thing cried. The ghoulish face twisted and distorted as it talked.

"Hah!" the abomination yelled happily. "I told you you'd be in Hufflepuff, didn't I?"

Harry Potter screamed.

The world turned to black.