Glad you're all excited about the kids! Just so you know, Sigyn, Vali, and Narvi may have larger roles to play later on...I mean I doubt anyone is going to sit idly by while Voldemort rises. If he even manages to in this timeline.

Hehehe. Only I know if he will or won't. Mwahaha. You'll just have to wait and see.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter.

The end of Christmas break did not go well.

There had been yelling. There had been several minor tantrums. There had been crying. Fenris had fastened himself to one of Gabriel's legs and refused to let go for nearly an hour.

And yet, at the end of it, Gabriel had found himself [once again] hidden in a temporarily impenetrable compartment on the Hogwarts express, with the same bag and supplies he'd brought with him on the trip there.

It was also time to think about figuring out whatever clue was inside the egg. Gabriel hadn't brought it with him - he hadn't even opened it since the dragon had thrown it at him - but February the twenty-fourth was rapidly approaching and it would just be embarrassing to be the only one who hadn't figured it out.

By the time Gabriel got back to his dormitory it was already dark, and everyone was asleep. His double sat up in bed when he slipped in next to it.

"Everything go well?"

"About as well as expected," said the double, shrugging.

Gabriel put two fingers on its forehead and closed his eyes as it rippled and faded away. Memories flashed in front of his eyes, and Gabriel saw the ball and everything else his double had done while he was in London.

"So the ball was nice," He muttered to himself. Luna had noticed he wasn't really there, but from what Gabriel now remembered she hadn't questioned it, but merely smiled and said it was alright. Michael had looked a bit suspicious, but hadn't said anything.

There hadn't been any sort of life-changing events. Nothing that warranted immediate attention.

"Well at least it's calmer here." Still, Gabriel felt a twinge of longing for home as he changed and climbed under the covers.

Snow had fallen heavily on the grounds of Hogwarts. The heat of the greenhouses was such a stark difference it created an opaque mist of condensation on the windows which prevented anyone from seeing outside. Despite this, however, Michael came back from his outdoor Care of Magical creatures lesson in a strangely good mood.

"What's happened to you?" Gabriel asked, arching an eyebrow. "You're never this happy when you come back from your lessons with Hagrid."

"It's called care of magical creatures," Michael reminded him. "And Hagrid wasn't actually teaching today. No idea why, but you'll never guess what creatures the substitute brought in."

"You might as well tell me. I'm not going to guess."

"Unicorns."

"What?" Gabriel stared at Michael. "You're shitting me."

"Harry!" Hermione looked scandalized.

"Unicorns? Seriously?"

"What, you didn't know they existed?" Michael sat down at the Ravenclaw table

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "I didn't spend a lot of time studying supernatural creatures." That, and they had been just myths on the last Earth.

"What did you spend your time doing, then?" Hermione would constantly slip little questions into the conversation in an effort to find out more about Gabriel. She seemed honestly interested in learning more.

"Hiding from my brothers," Gabriel said shortly, sweeping a Potions essay into his bag. Thank Dad that was over with.

Hermione looked unsure how to respond to that, and Michael averted his eyes, glancing down at the table like he was embarrassed - or, more likely, wishing to ask more about it but afraid to take the plunge. Gabriel changed the subject before either of them could ask him to elaborate. "Why wasn't Hagrid there?"

"No idea." Michael shrugged.

"Oh, I know," muttered Hermione darkly. "It's all because of Malfoy and that hag Skeeter."

Gabriel and Michael both looked towards her. "I'm sorry?" Michael said, bewildered.

"She wrote an article about Hagrid," Hermione said angrily. "Made it sound all horrible, like he's not a good teacher at all, and just because he's half giant-"

"He's what?" Michael's jaw dropped open.

"Don't be like that!" Hermione snapped. "Hagrid's never done anything, just because giants have got a bad rap-"

"For what?"

"Harry, do you pay any attention at all in History of Magic?"

"Does anyone?"

The egg, once Gabriel actually bothered to examine it, turned out to have several hinges on the bottom. The carved owl at the top turned out to twist easily, allowing the sides to fall open in three parts.

Opening it, however, was not as good an idea as it looked.

The egg shrieked like a bad death metal opera singer and Gabriel actually winced at the sound, wrenching the sides back together.

"Merlin's pants!" The boys in the dormitory were all staring at him. "What the hell was that?"

"I think the whole point is that I'm supposed to figure it out," said Gabriel dryly. His gaze dropped back down to the egg. It definitely hadn't just been screeching randomly, it had sounded almost...animalistic. "Any of you know any creatures that might shriek like that?"

Flipping through Michael's copy of Fantastic Beasts [and there were certainly more of them here than there had been on the last Earth] provided only a few ideas. It wasn't a Banshee, that was for sure. There were only so many creatures who shrieked to communicate, and fewer of those who could reasonably be defeated by a bunch of wizards barely out of school.

Well. There were the dragons to consider. Gabriel was probably the only one thinking along the lines of 'reasonable' here.

The shrieking was definitely meant to tell them where the challenge would take place, but a creature clue didn't seem to be the best way to do that...then again, they were wizards.

Gabriel had eventually decided that it was probably something on the grounds, since his double had been forced to listen to Percy Weasley complain about the mess which had been created by importing the dragons for the first task during the ball. Which meant it would take place either in the forest [other than the giant spiders he'd encountered in second year, nothing too bad, and the centaurs would leave him alone for the most part], or in the lake.

The lake was a bit of a blank spot. Other than the giant squid, there wasn't a whole lot of common knowledge on what lived in there. Therefore, the task would probably involve the lake in some way.

Also, the Forbidden forest was kind of forbidden. Dumbledore wouldn't break one of his own rules just for a tournament.

A little over a week before the second task, Gabriel got a letter in the mail.

Dear Dad,

You had better appreciate this letter [if you get it at all] because I spent about five hours finding the magical district in London and figuring out how to send you a letter at your ridiculous pimple school. You're welcome. For that, and for stopping Mom from sending you a shouting letter when we found a shelf full of them.

We're all pretty good here. They all calmed down a little when we explained it more and they realized you weren't leaving for good. Slepnir is dealing the best, and he helps out with the little guys a lot. Fenris has also stopped hiding when he has to go down for a nap. Now he just tries to outrun us.

Also, THANKS A LOT FOR NOT WARNING US ABOUT THEIR NIGHTMARES. Do you know how many times I've been woken up in the past week? Too. Many.

Hot chocolate seems to help. I don't know if you knew that but Fenris really likes it now so we've started keeping a stockpile of it. Mom seems to like being around kids again. She's much friendlier to them than she was to you, at any rate.

Jormungand doesn't talk a lot, but Slepnir says that's normal. I can't tell you how weird it is to be a foot and a half taller than my older brother. Very weird, in case you were wondering. Slepnir seems kind of confused too but he hasn't asked about it - I think he'd probably rather ask you.

Anyway I thought you deserved a status report and all, since you'll be gone for a while. There are some pictures Narvi took too.

Sincerely, Vali

That was...actually really thoughtful of Vali. None of the pictures were very good quality, but they were obviously all of Slepnir, Jormungand, and Fenris in the middle of various activities, even one of them all piled together asleep. Gabriel tucked them all into his bedside drawer, which was the only place anything could be kept secret in the entire dormitory.

Slepnir...well, of course he'd be confused. He was the oldest; he definitely would have remembered when Vali and Narvi were little. To see them suddenly much older than he was would have been very confusing. But there wasn't a whole lot Gabriel could do, and especially not from this far away.

A lot of things could have gone better if Odin hadn't gone completely insane and done what he did.

Gabriel is on his way back from Muriel's room [in a last-ditch effort to see if there was a message in the egg] when it happened.

He was on the seventh floor and holding an obviously old and definitely not written in English book when loud footsteps sounded around the corner and Gabriel heard McGonagall speaking with someone.

Shit.

Gabriel spun around and tried to go the other way when he realized that the corridor was so long there was no way he'd be able to duck out of the way before McGonagall rounds the corner and if she noticed the book [which she would] then that would raise way to many awkward questions. The least of which being how Gabriel suddenly knew how to read German.

Gabriel spun around again but he couldn't go towards them because that was just stupid and he needed somewhere to hide this freaking book. Gabriel turned one more time to see if there were any classrooms he could duck into and he'd gone all of three feet before suddenly there was a door next to him.

Gabriel didn't question it and darted in.

The footsteps passed the door. "Yes, I know that the task is necessary, but I don't understand why they have to make them so impossible..."

Gabriel waited until he couldn't hear McGonagall anymore. Letting out a long breath, he turned around and nearly dropped the book on his foot.

"Holy shit."

The room was cavernous, and definitely magical, as there was no way it could be that big without being bigger on the inside. The seventh floor ceiling did not go up that high.

Plus, there were the towering piles of everything from chairs to broomsticks that were definitely held up by magic, since they very nearly touched the ceiling. Gabriel was sure he must have been gaping.

Now that he looked closer, there were all sorts of things piled around the room, creating narrow paths in between piles of junk. Gabriel left the book on the floor and walked between a pile of what looked like ratty sofas and a bookcase which held a cage with some sort of mutated creature's skeleton.

The room didn't seem to have an end. It was piled high with objects that had no real value, old things that had been left behind or deemed useless.

Gabriel passed another narrow passage, paused, went back, and looked down it.

Something silver was glinting at the end, a short distance away.

Something that Gabriel was sure he recognized.

"You're shitting me."

How the hell had Ravenclaw's diadem ended up back at Hogwarts?

The silver diadem practically glowed as Gabriel picked it up, his Grace reacting and spiking slightly as he touched his horn for the first time in who knew how many hundreds of years. The diadem lit up blindingly and changed in his hands, silver frame and blue gems twisting together to take a familiar shape.

"Well," murmured Gabriel, holding his Horn [now properly horn-shaped] in both hands, "I definitely didn't expect this."

The second task found Gabriel standing by the lake's edge at ten AM and wondering if this was all really necessary. Frigid cold lake early in the morning, and they were going to make the champions swim through it?

At least Gabriel could do a warming charm. He was also the only champion who didn't actually need to breathe, so this would be a lot easier than he'd expected.

A whistle pierced the air and apparently that was the signal for them all to dive in. The crowd was clapping and cheering, but the noise vanished as soon as Gabriel went underwater.

The other three champions were heading deeper, farther into the lake. Gabriel rolled his eyes. Of course whatever the task was for would be at the bottom of the lake.

It was slow going, even though Gabriel did know how to swim fairly well. The lake bottom slowly fell away until Gabriel was swimming over an underwater meadow of seaweed and then a muddy, rock-strewn bottom.

Dark shadows lurked in the water, which resolved themselves into buildings as Gabriel got closer - there were mermaids, of all things, down here. And they were distinctly more fish-like than the legends might suggest. There were too many daddamn new creatures on this Earth. At least the giant squid hadn't shown up.

The merpeople didn't move to stop Gabriel, merely watched with yellow eyes as he swam past. They were singing, for whatever reason, and Gabriel caught snatches of the lyrics.

"..To recover what we took...you're time's half gone so tarry not...lest what you seek stays here to rot..."

Rot...but only something alive would rot.

Gabriel sincerely hoped that wizards were not that stupid.

There was a large statue, rough-hewn from stone, and four figures were tied to the stone merperson's tail.

Two of which were very familiar.

"Fuck!" The word came out as only a large bubble and Gabriel winced ever-so-slightly at the uncomfortable feeling of water in his lungs. Right. No talking underwater. He'd have to take care of that later.

His prime concern right now, though, was the fact that Michael and Hermione were tied to a statue way, way too far underwater and looking rather pale.

Gabriel scowled as he swam towards them. If I have to bring anyone back to life when we reach the surface then I'm going to murder whoever thought up this task. Painfully. Maybe drawn out.

He tried not to think about whether or not he'd be able to do so, if anyone drowned.

The angel blade flashed and Gabriel could have sworn that one of the nearby merpeople flinched away from it as he cut through the weird seaweed ropes binding Hermione and Michael to the statue. It was even slower going trying to drag them back to the surface, but it probably helped that not only were humans naturally buoyant, but Gabriel was going straight up.

Michael and Hermione woke up as soon as they broke the surface, sputtering as Gabriel took the opportunity to cough out the water he'd accidentally swallowed.

"Harry!"

"Nice to see you too." Hermione looked rather panicked, so Gabriel grabbed her arm - both to try and calm her down and to keep her up, since part of the panic was apparently caused by the fact that she didn't know how to swim very well.

Michael was blinking water out of his eyes. "You took both of us?"

"That sounds really wrong, you know."

Michael laughed and then coughed as a wave caught them suddenly.

"Let's get back to shore," Hermione said quickly. "I don't like being out this deep."

It turned out that Hermione was a perfectly capable swimmer once they reached water less than half a mile deep. All three of them were quickly pulled onto shore once they got close enough, and Madam Pomfrey managed to wrap all three of them in at least three blankets apiece. Gabriel did, however, manage to distract her before she shoved the weird smoke potion down his throat.

Fleur was already there, bearing the marks of some sort of attack that must have turned her back, since of the two people that had been brought back Gabriel had 'rescued' both of them. Cedric and Krum both turned up later, at almost the same time - Cedric was carrying someone Gabriel faintly recognized as the girl he'd taken to the Yule ball, while Krum was holding the smaller silver-haired girl who looked almost identical to Fleur.

The merpeople had poked their heads above the water, swimming close to the shoreline. Dumbledore had bent low to the water and appeared to be talking to them in the same screechy manner that the egg had screamed in, though at a considerably lower volume.

The judges eventually gave out points, but Gabriel was more preoccupied with the way Dumbledore kept side-eyeing him when he thought Gabriel wasn't looking. The merpeople obviously would have noticed that Gabriel wasn't at all human, and he didn't want to think about what they might have told Dumbledore.

There was something very odd going on. Gabriel hadn't noticed it previously - he never really paid attention to either Snape or Karkaroff - and yet both men in question had some very strange magic about them.

Forgoing the usual means of going on autopilot during potions, Gabriel took the time to study Snape. The magic in question was a sort of dark blot, curled over his left forearm - if there was any shape to it, Gabriel couldn't make it out. The same went for Karkaroff, and the longer Gabriel paid attention, the darker and thicker the magic seemed to get.

Gabriel didn't waste time trying to figure it out, but he certainly didn't ignore it; the opposite, in fact. He kept a close eye on both of them, because magic that created an aura that dark and smokelike certainly wasn't anything good.

The only noteworthy incident after that took place a week or two after the second task. Hermione [who by now was becoming a regular at the Ravenclaw table] kept watching the ceiling as the usual rush of morning owls flew in.

"What are you looking at?" Michael asked.

"I've taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet," Hermione said. "I'm tired of finding out everything from the Slytherins."

"Everything?" Gabriel asked skeptically as a gray owl soared towards Hermione, who was frowning at it.

"That owl hasn't got a newspaper," Michael noted as the gray one came closer. It landed on the table and was soon joined by even more, a whole group of them jostling around.

"What on Earth?" Hermione asked, bewildered.

"How many subscriptions did you take out, exactly?" Michael questioned as yet another owl landed on the table. Hermione snatched a letter from one of the owls and read it with an ever-increasing expression of disgust.

"Oh, really!"

"What?" Gabriel made to grab the letter but Hermione snatched it away.

"It's nothing," she said hurriedly, but her face had turned red. Hermione reached for another letter, as the owls were still jostling for attention. "Oh, these are all the same-"

"What is this about?" Gabriel asked again, and Michael opened nir mouth to answer just as Hermione shouted out.

"Ouch!"

Both Gabriel and Michael turned towards her immediately. The envelope Hermione had just opened was full of some sort of viscous yellow liquid, which had poured out over her hands, which were now so covered in thick sores that it looked like she was wearing gloves.

"Bloody hell!" Michael had jumped back in nir seat. "You'd better go to the hospital wing!"

"Ow," Hermione got out of her seat gingerly, doing her best not to use her hands. Gabriel stood up as well and followed her out of the hall - he could hear Michael following, if the extra set of footsteps was anything to go by.

"Hermione!" Gabriel called before she could go very far. "Wait up!" She paused at the foot of the marble staircase which led out of the entrance hall.

"What?" She asked, holding her hands close to her chest.

"Let me see." Gabriel took her hands gingerly - if the smell was anything to go by, much less the reaction, it was probably quite painful.

It took only a small amount of Grace to fix. Gabriel let Hermione's hands slip out of his, and she and Michael [who had come up next to Gabriel] watched in fascination as her hands returned to normal, sores fading away and the rough texture smoothing out.

"Wow." Was all Michael said. Hermione lifted her hands up and felt them gingerly.

"It feels fine," she said in astonishment.

"Of course it does," scoffed Gabriel. "Are you doubting my abilities?"

Hermione looked back at him. "But I thought you said you were low on power."

Gabriel made a dismissive motion. "Healing doesn't take that much. I'm fine. And now, so are you. You're welcome."

That tugged a grin from Hermione. "But how does it work, though?" She questioned. "You didn't say anything, or even snap like you did in the shack last year."

"Snapping is just for dramatic effect," Gabriel said idly. "It's all about intent."

"But so is magic, and that still requires a wand-"

"Hermione." Gabriel put up a hand to stop her. "When you have been practicing magic for at least three millenia, come back and then we'll talk about its intricacies and whether or not you need a wand."

Hermione, to her credit, didn't react to the reminder of Gabriel's age - neither did Michael, who spoke up. "Magic's different than what you've got, though, isn't it?" Ne asked.

Gabriel shrugged. "Sure. Same basic principles though - weird, not totally understood power."

"I really doubt-" Hermione began.

"You know, let's save this conversation for someplace where we don't run the risk of being interrupted by a load of students at any second."

The Easter holidays were as homework-filled as usual, and instead of the usual wish to go outside instead of write essays for three hours Gabriel found himself thinking that it would be a lot better if people could go home for Easter as well. Vali had sent several more letters, but it was hardly a decent substitute.

Hermione had finally explained the reason for the hate mail - Skeeter had published an article about her after Hermione had confronted her about another article Skeeter had published about Hagrid.

"I was just angry," Hermione muttered when Gabriel had finished the article [and taken the time to mentally compose something good to do to Skeeter]. "She's such a hag, though, I wonder how she even got some of the information..."

"What?" Gabriel looked across the library table at Hermione, having been distracted from the possible merits of whether he was able create another Trickster universe like the TV one he'd made for the Winchesters, at such low power as he was now.

"Well..." Hermione hesitated. "Just...some of the things in that article...there was no way she could have known."

"Like what?" Gabriel picked the article back up. Honestly, if he'd written something like this he'd probably be laughing his ass off. Except if he'd written it, it would be about someone who deserved to have something horrible happen to them.

"Well-" Hermione was actually blushing. "It's just - how did she find out that Viktor invited me to visit him over the summer?"

"Seriously?" Gabriel dropped the magazine, looking at her in disbelief. "He took you to the ball, now you're arranging summer plans?"

"It's just an invitation," Hermione protested.

"Are you going to accept?"

"Maybe." Hermione frowned in thought. "I don't know. My parents and I usually go somewhere over the summer, and I don't really get to see them any other time."

"Well, if you do accept, let me know. I'll send you condoms."

"Harry!" Gabriel laughed as he dodged the book Hermione actually threw at him. She was bright red. "We wouldn't be doing that!"

Gabriel woke up abruptly, gasping for breath [even though he didn't need it] and the feeling of burning pain in his lower wings.

He had to clench his mouth shut to prevent himself making a noise, because it felt like the third pair were being slowly singed off and there was something very, very wrong, because even on this Earth he could always hear the Host in the back of his mind, his siblings talking and ordering others around but now his wings were burning and everything was

absolutely

completely

horribly

silent.

"Harry?" Gabriel winced. There was no way he could stay in the dorms right now. Bracing himself, Gabriel used his almost-working pair of wings and collapsed to the ground of an abandoned classroom with a wordless scream.

He didn't know how long he lay there but it felt like years before his wings stopped feeling like they were on fire. Gabriel tried to turn over and immediately flopped back onto his back.

"Aargh..."

He still felt sore and Gabriel didn't think he was going to be moving anytime soon. Gabriel stayed on his back despite the pain because there was no way he was lying on his stomach and staring at the charred outline of the pair of wings that had just burned themselves off.

Gabriel wrenched his mind away from self-pity. Think, he told himself viciously. Distract yourself. What could have caused this?

There was, of course, only one possible answer.

The only way he could have lost a pair of wings like that - as they were representations of his power - and the only way every single angel in Heaven could have gone silent at the exact same time would have been if they had all Fallen at once, and the gates shut behind them.

Gabriel didn't want to think of the implications. If Heaven had been closed, then even if he did get back to full power he's still only have about half [maybe a tiny bit more] of what he used originally. It was almost lucky he hadn't been hiding out in Heaven [which had been his original plan before the whole Harry Potter mess came about] because then he'd have lost all six wings on the way down to Earth.

Balthazar. Gabriel suddenly wondered what had happened to him. Even if he hadn't been in Heaven, Balthazar would have undoubtedly lost his wings - he only had two, after all. Would he be able to get back to the house in London?

A fresh wave of pain on his lower back when he shifted unconsciously successfully distracted Gabriel from thinking about his brother, changing his train of thought to shit that hurts.

If the Winchesters were involved in this Gabriel was going to make them wish they were back at the Mystery Spot.

Yeah, I'm going to end it there.

According to the Supernatural timeline, the Fall in season 8 took place on May 21st, 2013. As stated earlier in the story, third year took place in 2011. That was in November. Of course, in January the year would turn to 2012, and as it's now May of fourth year another new year would have taken place, making the timeline for this chapter [except for the very beginning] all take place in 2013.

Timelines are confusing. I'm sorry if you don't understand because I don't really either.

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