Dumbledore smiled. Today he got to do another announcement, they were always fun! Looking around the breakfast table he took in the appearances of all of his colleagues. Snape was staring gloomily at the Gryffindor table in contrast to Quirrel who was beaming nervously at the whole hall. Professor sprout and all the rest of the teachers appeared nervous and tense. His grin grew. It was time! Standing up, he took a look around the hall as it immediately silenced itself. He spoke. "Today, a strange thought occurred to me! Normally, I pass them off, but this one. It was too great to pass up! So, I'm sure you are all wondering, by now, what this great idea is?" scattered nods. Good. "The idea, is a… School wide tournament! Starting today, and carrying on throughout the week we will be having a TOURNAMENT! Each school year will have a battle between houses till only one person remains in, and so on until we have established a school champion!"
Oliver giggled to the surprise of his housemates. "So, Headmaster, how will we establish a winner? And what are the rules anyway?" America shoved him and hissed at him to shut up but Russia did nothing to stop Oliver's little speech. Dumbledore smiled, a wave of a wand later fiery letters were hanging in the air showing rules as well as a scoreboard. Oliver grinned and was about to speak again but Dumbledore gave him a look and spoke. "The tournament begins… NOW!" it was utter chaos, the tables were vanished immediately but not the benches. America took one look around and after pretending to cast a spell on himself, he snapped a bench and charged the Slytherins with it. They scattered and a few fell over. They glowed for a second and when they got up again, they couldn't touch anything or be touched themselves. Spell or no.
America grinned and slowly, ever so slowly he took one step towards them. Malfoy squeaked and ran with a parting order of. "PROTECT THE HIERARCHY!" the Slytherins took one look at his back, and decided that it WAS, in fact, worth it to protect themselves. This time. They ran. America grinned a manic grin and went to charge the Hufflepuffs as his hair darkened and shades formed on his face. Russia took a look at him and sighed. Only HE could switch through the mirror that carelessly when he knew that it would be a long time till he got back. Silly child. Shrugging, Russia called General winter to the battle field. About half the school fell and glowed. He didn't notice himself changing to 2P either and when he did it was too late.
Oliver grinned. Looks like his plan to get company had worked! Time for him to join in then. The Ravenclaws were buried in a cupcake landslide as he skipped over to the other two nations. They looked at him and grinned. A glance at the ceiling gave him the time, nearly midday. Oliver smiled again, "We've got time to kill, how's a nap sound~?" Viktor glared at him and walked off "No. this is too fun, where is that little pathetic scar boy?" Oliver sighed. "Al? Do you know where he is?" Allen looked around the hall. "Is that him? Over there battling the little-! "Oliver tapped the swear jar. "Blonde kid?" Oliver smiled. "I do believe it is~! Let's go, poppet!" Allen grumbled but followed the overly excited nation anyway.
After a small walk he realized that it would actually detract from the enjoyment to interrupt. He huffed. This idea looked like it was actually going to be boring to wait out the school getting beaten to bits by itself. "HEY! RUSSIA-N!" Viktor turned to him and glared. Then he dropped the person he was holding and walked over there. "This is too easy, where is the harder students?" Oliver faltered. "We have to beat this year first…" Viktor huffed and tapped the ground with his foot. "That will be boring, is there no other way?" "We could kill-""NOT ALLOWED AL!" Allen grumbled but shut up anyway.
"Look guys, unfortunately we can't do what we're used to here, I know it sucks but we have no choice. So think! What non-lethal ways can you think of to knock them all down, come on! " Viktor looked to be in thought for a moment while Al just stared straight on, bored. It carried on like this for a good few minutes with Oliver in thought as well. Then Viktor blinked and straightened up a little, grabbing the other's attention. He smirked and tapped his foot. The whole shook violently and apart from them only Hermione, Harry, Ron and Draco were left standing, mainly because they'd all been levitating each other in an attempt to drop them. Draco's goons went down as well. Oliver grinned.
"Let's go!" the three jumped through a portal that had appeared mid-air into the second year's space, the grounds. They were quickly followed by the others and a loud bell sounded once they were all through. Oliver's grin widened. "How about we bind them and feed them our specialities~?" Allen deadpanned. "I am not feeding my bat to people, no matter how funny it would be." Oliver deflated but Viktor picked up the slack. "Let's all just have fun with this group, yes? We mustn't kill them but we can torture them, right?" it was Oliver's turn to deadpan now. "This isn't our side of the mirror, remember?"
By this point the group had gathered quite the crowd. Including Hermione. She was frowning, each one of the group seemed to have changed something about themselves as well as their body and it rather bugged her how she couldn't seem to figure out why they'd done it. She sighed. Maybe if she listened she'd her something important. Again. She groaned, how could she have missed it? They kept talking about mirrors. That must be important! "Look. I appreciate a good argument and all but time's a-ticking and I want to be up in that champion list!" several scattered mutters at that, how could a first year be school champion?
"Well what do you expect us to do you-! You sugar cake muffin?!" Oliver barely restrained his voice to a normal volume. Allen chucked a bag of galleons to Oliver and began swearing at him. Profusely. "I don't know! How about doing what they EXPECT US TO DO?!" "WHAT'S THAT THEN?! GO ON! You tell us for once, Yankee!" it was at this point that the crowd noted Oliver was obsessive with his swear jar, paying himself at that point even though Yankee wasn't a curse word.
Allen grinned a shit eating grin. "Fight to maim." Oliver shrugged. "Works for me! Can we borrow parts of them, please~?" Viktor joined in the conversation at this point, much to the crowd's surprise. "No. it is maim, not need to regrow organs. Understand? Non-lethal spot's or they will notice us." Harry snickered and whispered to Ron "I think we've already noticed them!" Ron nodded and then fell over forwards. Alfred was standing there, cocking a bat over his shoulder with a manic smile on his face. Harry looked forwards and just saw a trail of bodies leading through the crowd, some still twitching. Gulping, he looked up at the insane hufflepuff. Then Harry ran. He ran to the other side of the crowd, carefully so as not to be in the way of the other members of the insane trio. They were all scary.
Slowly, piece by piece the whole group fell down. From the inside out, whether it was strikes from a baseball bat, pipe or rock cake, they all went down. At the end of it all you couldn't really see through glowing people. So the leftover's jumped through to third year. Rinse, lather, repeat and you have how they end up in a three way fight to the unconscious-ness organised by Dumbledore for Friday's entertainment, though it was unusual, no-one questioned it.
Oliver was chilling on one side of the dome they were to fight in sharpening his kitchen knife and making sure he had plenty of room on his table to attack them properly. Yeah. He had chosen a table as his random object of choice, then transfigured the chair to a pretty dense kitchen knife. Why? Cause cupcakes. Madam Pomfrey was just outside the dome ready to rush in and take a body out for healing. Allen was standing by a large bag of somethings. It was mirrors but no-one would know that, he had chosen mirrors because one: shards are ALWAYS fun to throw, you can see pretty patterns where they all landed. Two: it would be… amusing for him to see the first players reacting to looking through the mirror and seeing that. The nations can see through realms using mirrors but they will see the ones closest to their counterparts. Viktor, meanwhile, had a small bag of blackened muffins. From Arthur's house.
Viktor smiled. "Alright, Al, Arthur. We have a show to perform. Now, who wants to try muffins? They were made by Arthur." That was Al out for the count after one muffin. "I knew you would love them Arthur. Now, how many can you try? You did make them after all." He popped one in his mouth, munched and then shoved his jaw back in place when it became dislocated. A grin manifested itself on Oliver's face. "Let me have one! Please~?" Viktor nearly choked on his muffin. "Of course you can!" Oliver then proceeded to grab the whole tray and do… something to it. All that remained of them was the base components it was made of. Wheat, sugar, a floating blob of milk, some eggs (whole) and a chunk of black stuff. Oliver stared blankly at the ingredients now on his table. The kitchen knife was swiftly split into two smaller ones.
Oliver slowly grinned. Whispers ran amok around the crowd. The Slytherins were wondering what the black substance was so they too could make death muffins while all the other houses were merely wondering why the cupcakes were so… deadly. Looking around the crowd, Oliver he spotted the golden trio and grinned at them. Hermione frowned at him, Ron and Harry didn't even notice though, as they were focused on eating, as well as watching Viktor stiffly dance to some song he was singing. It seemed to be about some guy called Rasputin. Actually, most of the school was watching Viktor. Huh.
Three seconds later cupcakes were raining down as Oliver's hands sped through the materials. Viktor had been munching the remainder of the coal cakes but was hit on the head by one and knocked out. Oliver wiped his brow, stood up and bowed. The ever eager excited crowd tried a few and spat them out. There was some meat in these cupcakes! They put them to the sides of their plates and ate normally as the nations were lead out of the room for the evening.
It was Halloween and the 2Ps were actually very excited. Why? All Hallows eve was when the borders between dimensions were thinnest, ergo, the best chance they had at getting back home to their lovely sane world. Compared to this positively plain world they really could not wait for a chance to get out! Despite the group's attempts to hide their excitement it was a wasted effort, everyone was noticing that they were excited, and they were also wondering why. Sure, it was Halloween but it wasn't like it was Christmas or anything!
So, despite the stares in the corridor the group were actually feeling very hyped. They just had to wait a little while to try the spell on a regular mirror, rather than the true mirror. The walls were very weak so it seemed nearly certain it would work. The day wore on and eventually the feast came around, each of them sitting on their own tables they picked the most similar dishes to their world's and excitedly waited out the long meal so they could sneak off to the Hall of needs to try it, or Room of requirement as it was called here.
Or they would have, if it wasn't for the extremely annoying professor wimp-ell. He burst into the hall midway through the second course and fainted, forwards of all ways, after yelling about a troll in the dungeons. The group just stared blankly onwards amidst the discord reigning over the hall. Students were standing up and forming lines of their houses but they remained unfazed by the chaos in the area. Allen was the first to react. Staring daggers at the air he stood up jaggedly, Viktor and Oliver looked over to him sullenly. They all knew what this meant. Until they had another weak spot like this, aligned by the stars alone, they wouldn't have another chance to get home without the mirror.
Oliver followed next, standing up with a frown set upon his face. Viktor showed no emotion beyond an even blanker poker face but the two parallel nations knew how he truly felt. Angry beyond belief at the hand fate had dealt them this time, yes. It was going to be over soon, and they knew how to end it. They just had to play along for long enough, wait for a chance to leave. Their others would, of course, find a way to hurt them if their people were hurt, all of them would hurt their others, and another civil war for Britain, certainly, would be pointless. America and Russia, they had the fights between others more often, but it was still just as devastating each time for those nations, the first were weak. But it would only hurt both if they injured a civilian or soldier.
Allen stalked forwards, they followed. The teachers were all busy at the front of the lines shushing troublemakers. It was, of course, no trouble for the group to slip into a line, they did not care which. It did not matter which, after all. They followed, when a duo branched off to save someone, they did not care. Why did they follow them? They did not know, it didn't matter, maybe where the duo was going, the mirror was. The motivation was simple, primal even. There was hope there and maybe, just maybe, that hope was real. No matter if it was or not.
So they followed them, just keeping them in sight, silent like the blood that stained their hands. Far away from the duo, they followed. Eventually the duo stopped. They were at a door, to the girls' bathroom. Oliver was tired by now, this act of being…. Sane was too tiring. "Can we just go in, please poppet?" Ron started. "You were following us?!" Harry seemed to be of a similar opinion but he was too busy wrestling with the door to care. Allen looked down at Oliver. He grinned. Oliver looked to Viktor, a smile was playing at his lips.
Allen charged the door. Ron and Harry barely got out of the way in time. The door didn't budge. Allen glared at it. He got out his club and began to hit it, not a dent appeared. Viktor's smile disappeared. He pushed Allen out of the way. He turned around purposefully to the two, they were showing their true selves. Silly, you hide till the murder, best way. And the face is always funny when you kill like that. Such little horrified faces… no matter. That was not why he moved him. Viktor tapped his wand on his arm. He became a girl. Allen grumbled but followed suit. Oliver didn't bat an eyelid.
They went in. Harry and Ron were quick to follow in the gap before the door resealed itself. Once inside, the transformed females reverted themselves to males, the world differences made your head spin a little even if you had the memories of why the change happened, and the context, it didn't change that, and the Nyos went home immediately. Lucky them. They didn't have to worry about closed off portals!
The dizziness was probably why Oliver was clapping his hands and giggling at the troll in front of them. He was grinning madly, and Viktor was aware of that. VERY aware of that. He wouldn't stop him though, it would be his call to let loose with humans around, after all. Allen's too, by the looks of it. Oliver grabbed a knife from thin air, Allen his club, and Viktor summoned blindfolds and earplugs for the three humans in the room. They took them, questioningly, but they took them. Viktor said to put them on, they stared at him confusedly but did so. They could still hear the troll's screams through the plugs. It was a good thing they couldn't hear Oliver's laughter. Allen was having fun too, whilst Oliver dissected the Troll, he was practicing his baseball strike with the Troll's head.
Viktor turned the students around and pulled them out of the Bathroom, he cast a Russian scream hider spell on the door. Then he took out their Earplugs. They took off their blindfolds on their own, Harry and Ron looked up at him with his face grim as death and they looked like they were going to ask a question, but decided better of it. They scarpered. But Hermione? She was different, she stayed. But only to question the Russian. "Why the HECK are you so far ahead?! I've tried! I have tried SOOO hard! And you know what?! I CAN'T BLOODY GET AHEAD OF YOU - I just, WHY!? Just, why! Why ARE you so far ahead! I spend hours on hours on HOURS in the library, trying to learn more than you guys, reading tomes on tomes, that yes, I DO enjoy! But do I like being in the Library so long!? NO! You people- YOU have so much more knowledge than me! And there is no REASONABLE Explanation for it! Your not- I don't know- Immortal creatures that have been around since the dawn of time, you're not vampires or ghosts! Why! Why do you have so much KNOWLEDGE! "
Viktor stared into air for a long time even as she regained her breath. He smirked, it was a while since he got to do this. "We were learning from the start, unlike you. You didn't pick up the books in the shop and read them then and there. WE did. That is the difference, Hermione." Tears were prickling at her eyes then. She glared, "F-Fine then!" Viktor's face cooled back into a blank mask. She stared reproachfully at him then ran away. Around the corner, Harry and Ron were hiding. They hid as Hermione went past, but they seemed a little confused, maybe alarmed, as they went back to the common room after her. They didn't encounter the teacher's on their route, luckily and they did form a strong bond that night, why will never be known. But the Parallel nations had it worse.
The teacher's opened the door, just to check someone wasn't in there for whatever reason they would be. Imagine their surprise when they found two first years having fun with a floppy troll corpse in the room. Allen was still playing hit and catch with himself and the wall but he was also watching Oliver at the same time. Oliver had well… harvested it, pretty much. All the organs, bones and muscles were in labelled jars, only God knows where the jars came from. Probably Snape's office, and he was using the skin like a cape, running around giggling madly.
Snape, Mc Gonnagall, Dumbledore and Quirrell walked into this. Quirrell fainted, Mc Gonnagall was in shock, Dumbledore was a little surprised but he hid it well. Snape however? He was intrigued. VERY intrigued. "What were you doing in here, Kirkland? The troll… seems to have been predisposed. Why are you playing with its corpse, exactly?" the remaining teacher's, Mc Gonnagall and Dumbledore gave half-hearted nods. Oliver however, looked like a deer in headlights. He was NOT expecting adults to come here, in the area he and Allen were letting themselves loose after months of pretending to be normal. This was bad, VERY bad. As in, Arthur would find a way to kill him through the mirror, bad.
He smiled nervously, "uh… nothing?" Snape looked at the Jars and skin, then back at Oliver. He raised his eyebrow, looking to Allen and his pseudo Quidditch ball and bat. He sighed. "No, Gryffindor. You have NOT been doing nothing. You professionally dissected a mountain troll, Kirkland, and then you ran around with its skinned body as a cape. That is not normal student behaviour, Kirkland. I am going to be having to confiscate those Jars, and the skin. Jones, your head too." Allen was, until then pretty much happy with this, his previous oppressor was getting his toys taken off him, and it was quite amusing how he utterly failed to be a good excuse maker for his playtime. It was definitely funny. Up that point.
"But Whyyy?! I wasn't gonna save it or anything! I was just gonna put on my bed at home and stuff! That's all! Won't be no use as potion stuff anyways!" Snape glared. "Head." Allen sighed. It was unfortunate, but he did have to keep appearances. "Fine…" he passed it over, very reluctantly. Snape smiled condescendingly at the Hufflepuff. "Good to see you're loyal to your betters, at least." Allen gritted his teeth. He just had to get into the stupid smiley persona of his stupid 1P like he'd been in for the past few months after he got over the initial insanity of being stuck in a new world.
Right. Smiley. "Sure thing! That head would'a sure looked cool on my bed but you must have something even cooler and heroic-er than my Idea, right?" Oliver chipped in at this point. "Yes, yes. Come on Alfred, we need to get back to our dormitories soon." Snape was at this point thoroughly confused, they'd undergone a complete one eighty in their personalities within an hour. A chuckle was heard from Dumbledore, "Yes, I suppose you all had better get going soon, all the better for the morning. Though I suspect the Gryffindor's are holding some bizarre party. Off you go!" Oliver frowned. "Yes. Come ON Alfred!" the two walked off till they were out of sight and went their own ways then.
It was Christmas morning and once again the nations were not feeling happy. This time, they were wearing their masks near one hundred percent of the time. No slip ups, though due to that, the spider population in the Forbidden Forrest had gone down significantly. Not that anyone noticed though. No one really cared about them after all. Festivities around them were high and in full spring, so they had to follow along with it. Allen was however, often enjoying a conversation with the games keeper over various beast species. Oliver was bored out of his mind though, why had Arthur even wanted to come here in the first place, sure, it was to pass the time. But they could have at least gone to a muggle school, with far less dimension swapping causing distractions. Not a magic school.
Oliver once again stood up drearily, practicing his mimicry of his 1P in his pocket mirror which he could faintly see his 1P in as he went to move to the bathroom for a much needed relief. Something caught his eye, though. It was a large box of presents, with a letter on top. A very thick letter. Oliver sighed. He had to open it, it was probably from these nations and he would have to write a reply to it. Great. Hopefully he could get back home in time for Arthur to deal with it even if he did read it. He looked at the address, Italy. And there was one beneath, from China, which was what made it look so thick in the first place then. He opened it a peek and saw it was a letter addressed to the other two's first players though, why it was there and not in their piles he didn't know. He wasn't going to read it though, Arthur could deal with it when he got here, NOT Oliver. No sir!
The others were beginning to wake up now, mumbling and rolling over a few times. Even though there were very few people here, it being the holidays and all, he still had to keep up the mask. Even though it was relatively easy to slip into, it ached and hurt repressing his very nature for so long. It was not like the first players ever had to do anything like this after all. Lucky them. Even the humans on this side never had to pretend to be their very opposites and it hurt so much, it was like a little flame burning him into ash from the inside out and leaving neither he nor Arthur nor their Nyos alive. If one part died, the balance fell and they all did.
Shaking his head, he looked in the mirror again. He could see Arthur talking to someone on the other side, shaking his head and waving his arms a lot. He smiled lightly into it, it didn't matter if He couldn't go back home yet, at least he could see home. Looking around him, the few who had stayed were starting to sluggishly make their way downstairs for the Christmas breakfast. Oliver sighed, then put on a smile and followed them downstairs.
The meal was boring, and Oliver expected the rest of the day to be. All he ever got to do that was vaguely interesting was when he followed students around, a habit he had developed after the Troll incident, there was always something left behind or encountered by them, and it was going to be boring unless he got a chance to do that soon. Lunch, and the evening followed mostly the same. Boring. The other 2Ps had stayed as well, but didn't see any particular reason to maintain contact with him during the holidays.
A few nights later however, was interesting, Harry snuck out using his cloak. The one death made, you know the one. Oliver didn't have any trouble seeing him though, nations weren't nations for nothing, and they actually had access to skills relating to their people, they couldn't be hidden from them. So, Oliver followed him. He wandered around, to the library. To research probably. What, Oliver wasn't bothered about so long as he got something out of his walk tonight.
And he did. Harry knocked over a lamp and gained the attention of the janitor. The cruel, merciless janitor. Oliver attached himself to the ceiling. This was going to be fun! Actually, it wasn't. Harry got away scotch free because of his speed and Oliver followed the boy out, maybe he would stop somewhere fun for a rest. He did. He accidentally got himself in a room with a large, full body mirror. With ancient text around the edges, worn rough casing and a shimmering portal to step through. That's right. Oliver had found The Mirror through a bored walk. That was… really good for him and the others.
He jumped up into the air. 'YES! I'VE FOUND IT!' Harry whipped around at that, startled out of his eleven year old skin. "You found what?" Oliver came crashing down with this comment. "Ah, well, it's my way home. Theirs too. "Harry stared at him, "what do you mean? Is that place through there with mom and dad, your… home?" Oliver blinked. "Ah… sort of-"Harry had tried putting his arm through the mirror. He failed, obviously. Oliver laughed, a hint of insanity seeping through. "It only works for some people, silly! Arthur and the other first players were staring at the mirror in slight shock from the other side. They hadn't had to find it, but they had had trouble getting through, obviously. They'd tried, but the spell, or whatever it was, was blocking passage more than once. Annoyingly.
Oliver squinted at the mirror, something was up with it. He stared at it intently for a few second, before it came to him. He closed his eyes, and looked again. There was a red floating stone in the middle of it. Some sort of… blocking tool? No matter. Maybe he could get it out… he opened his eyes and tried reaching through it. His hand went in the mirror but stopped short of the rock, he twisted it around. No result. The rock was producing a barrier around it! Oliver growled, and pulled back his hand, ready for a punch. Harry was looking pretty fearful at this point. He spoke. "A-Arthur…?" Oliver looked at him, and sighed. "Never mind. It wouldn't change anything." He strode out quickly, shaking his head.
He had to let the others know of this development. He gathered them all in the Room of Requirement. "Allen, Viktor. Do you know what happened a few hours ago?" Viktor stared at him. Allen snorted. "No, why the F*ck would I?" Oliver held out the swear jar and a clink of coin against coins was heard. "I found the mirror." Viktor stared at him still, but with slightly more concentration this time. Allen grinned. "So… we can go home?" Oliver winced. "Not quite… Theresamagicalrockthingblockingourwayback!" Allen glared. "Come again?" "There's a magical rock thing blocking our way back. It's red and shiny, and I can't get any further in than it. It's very vexing!" Allen huffed. "So what? Just break the mirror-""then we would never be able to go home."
Allen groaned. "Damn it! Why the hell do we have to stay in this mother fucking son of a shit eating belly humping twit mother of a world?! It's not Fucking fair!" Oliver held out the swear jar. "I don't care why, I'm just wanting to go home. I'm missing cupcakes, you're missing your animal sanctuary and god knows what Viktor is missing but we all are so… SHUT THE F*CK UP!" silence apart from the soft sound of a coin landing in the Jar. They all left. Each planning ways to break the rock. It was not supposed to be there, and they would leave it screaming for mercy. Somehow, they would find a way. Alone.
Ok! So, I'm sorry this took so long to get out, everyone. But I have one question I would like everyone to think about, and hopefully answer in the reviews. Why is the stone blocking their way through? I want well thought out answers, and remember, I answer each and every review on an account, I reply to guests in the next chapters note. actual chapter is exactly 500 words by the way.