Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, settings, or worlds within this work, outside of a few OC's. Any recognizable characters are not mine; I'm just playing with them. Harry Potter and its associated works belongs to J.K. Rowling. X-men and Marvel belongs to... er... Disney, I suppose? I am not making any money off of this fan work, nor do I wish to.

Chapter 11

Meetings

Once his powers had calmed enough, Harry went to lunch with his friends, and made it through his afternoon classes without a hitch. When it was nearing four o'clock, he snagged his invisibility cloak and made his way to the room he'd been instructed to go to for his meeting with the teachers.

Removing his cloak, he stepped inside. Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Dumbledore were there, along with a young blonde girl he'd seen around but never really spoken to. She must be Luna, their volunteer assistant McGonagall mentioned in her letter. The letter had asked whether or not he would be willing for another young mutant who could detect other mutants to be present at his meeting in order to verify that he wasn't just using magic. Harry hadn't been too sure about a person he'd never met knowing his identity... but he figured if it was another mutant, he was alright with it. He'd sent his permission back with Neville, who was beginning to tire a bit of acting as a messenger boy, but bore with it for Harry's sake.

He moved to stand before them all. "Hello."

"Hello, Harry" said Dumbledore. "I trust you are well?"

"I'm fine, Professor."

McGonagall peered at him closely. "As I understand it, something happened earlier with your... mutation, which caused you to miss Transfiguration."

Harry grimaced. "I- er... Yeah. It started during Charms. I didn't really fancy what would happen if I accidentally destroyed your classroom. Figured it was better to skip than to find out."

Flitwick frowned at that. He hadn't noticed anything, but perhaps he simply didn't know what to look for.

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "Destroyed my classroom?"

"...I think you'll understand once you see my power."

"He's definitely a real mutant," Luna murmured. "His powers are still acting up a bit, though it's not as bad as earlier."

The teachers all glanced to her in surprise. Harry didn't seem to be doing anything at all.

Harry jerked. How the heck did she know about that? The letter did say she's a mutant, too, he remembered. Best to assume it's got something to do with her abilities. He frowned to himself. But I'm not using my ability, not on purpose at least- he studied the airflow in the room. It's not windy or anything... Although...

Huh. The air itself might not be blowing around, but it certainly felt denser in here than it ought to be. Guess that's another part of this whole thing to watch out for...

McGonagall cleared her throat. "Are you sure you're alright to continue, Mr. Potter? If you are still having trouble, we could always reschedule for another time."

"I'm fine, Professor. It's... this is a normal level of acting up. What happened earlier was... bad. Worse than usual."

"I went past that classroom," said Luna. "I noticed the residual energy. Lots of broken things. You're very strong."

"Oh. I, er- Thanks?"

She smiled. "You're welcome."

Flitwick cleared his throat. "The two of you can talk later. We should get started with what we came here for- even if Miss Lovegood has already verified your mutation, we still have yet to see it in action."

Harry started. "Right. Okay. Here goes." He shifted towards the back of the room. "You might want to stand against the wall for this. And, er... be ready to put up a shield. Just in case." He still remembered how he knocked his friends over the last time he'd done this on purpose. He wasn't taking any chances this time.

Dumbledore looked amused at Harry's micromanaging, and seemed a bit skeptical as to its necessity, but he complied. Once he was certain everyone was situated, Harry reached for his wind. Although he still felt a bit drained from earlier, it answered him swiftly. He brought the air whirling to life, managing to keep it to a swift breeze. Swallowing nervously, he chanced a look at the teachers.

Dumbledore seemed to be quite enjoying the breeze ruffling through his hair and beard. McGonagall was as unflappable as ever, though there was a brightness to her eyes that said she was intrigued. Flitwick, in contrast, stood gobsmacked at first. Then his expression melted into the same excited glee that Hermione showed when they were learning something she found particularly interesting.

Luna reached out her fingers, letting the air trail through them, a small grin playing over her face. Harry wondered if she saw his powers a bit differently than he did- her power seemed to be related to some sort of ability to see magic, after all. He grinned right back at her, gently nudging the wind so it pushed just a little stronger. She laughed, and in that moment Harry ha a feeling that he and Luna had the potential to become good friends.

After a few more seconds, he felt he'd pushed his luck with his meager control quite long enough, and began dialing it back. Moments later, everything was still once more. The professors stepped forward from their place against the wall.

"Impressive, Mr. Potter, very impressive. I'm pleased to have been allowed to witness this demonstration; your abilities are quite fascinating!" Flitwick's eyes gleamed brightly with childish excitement, though he kept it tempered.

"I can certainly see why you were concerned about attending class." said McGonagall.

"Very interesting," said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling at Harry. "I am beginning to understand more fully the necessity of these demonstrations. I admit that while I agreed we needed to meet with the mutant students, I did not truly consider it a task of much urgency. But if there are many other students with powers as volatile as this one..."

Harry's eyes widened. "Classes would be in chaos, if enough of us lost hold of our powers," he realized. "We need... We need to have somewhere we can learn to control them better. A weekend meeting, or an extra class or something..."

"Agreed," stated McGonagall. "If this last week watching Severus work with Mr. Malfoy has taught me anything, it's that these abilities are incredibly individualized and can be rather... unpredictable."

"We're working on it. In the meantime," said Flitwick, "We should discuss what Mr. Potter in particular will need as one such holder of an individualized power."

Tuesday morning before breakfast saw Professors Snape, McGonagall, and Sprout- along with Luna Lovegood, as before- meeting with Cedric Diggory.

"Good morning, Mr. Diggory," said Professor Sprout.

Cedric shifted uncomfortably. "Morning, Professor."

"I hear you're the one in back of all the misplaced items in Hufflepuff House?"

He made a face. "Yes, ma'am."

She gave him a smile. "Well, I suppose we'd better see what's causing it, then."

"Okay." Cedric knelt down and reached into the bag he'd brought with him, pulling out several sheets of muggle paper (some of which had been folded into origami butterflies, frogs, birds, and even a dragon), a few parchments, and a set of robes. As he straightened, his eyes flitted to McGonagall's hat for a second. His lips twitched momentarily, then he shook himself and brought his attention back to the items in his hands. "I, uh. I'm not completely sure what types of things this power absolutely does and doesn't work on just yet. I know it works on paper, and parchment, and it works on string and fabric... But it doesn't work on things like dishes, or bottles, or sticks. So, I'm not really sure how you'd explain it. Um..."

"Well," said McGonagall, "Perhaps you can start by showing me what you know you can do for now, and if anything else pops up later we'll make a note of it."

"Oh! Yeah, that'll work." He tossed his stuff to the ground. "Watch this!"

He closed his eyes, reaching out with the buzzing awareness that lived in the back of his mind all the time now, feeling his way over all the different materials on the floor, then forming links with each item one-by-one. He'd found that he had a lot more "accidents" if he tried to grab everything all at once, whereas when he focused on each individual thing like this, it got a bit easier.

Professor Sprout looked a bit confused that nothing seemed to be happening just yet. "Isn't he going to do anything?"

Luna tilted her head. "But he is doing something. Do you mean you can't see it?"

"Ah... No, I can't. Must be your own power that lets you see... whatever he's doing. What is he doing, then?"

"Fishing."

Cedric's concentration was broken for a moment as everyone in the room turned to stare incredulously at Luna. Cedric finally sputtered out, "Fishing? I'm not fishing."

"Well, it's a lot like fishing, I should think. You reach out a string, attach it to what you're trying to catch, use the string to move it around..."

Cedric blinked. "Er... I suppose you could call it fishing, then, but really it's a lot closer to puppets than fish."

"But you don't have to catch puppets. And you can let go of the fish again."

"I- that's not-but it..." He sighed, then decided this wasn't important enough to argue about; they were here to assess his power level, not to talk semantics. He could capitulate temporarily on this one thing... Though he certainly wouldn't start calling it that outside of this conversation. "Fine. Fishing it is, then."

He reached for the strings he'd already placed, and moved several origami crafts around the room; he set the butterflies' wings flapping, made the frogs jump... as he added more and more connections, his control of each individual item deteriorated until he was left with a large cluster of items just swooping around in large, generic motions. Finally, he reached a point where he couldn't focus on anything properly, and it all just sort of spun around in the air, though none of it dropped to the ground. Eventually, he drew everything close to himself so it wouldn't scatter all over the floor, and let it fall. He stood there, a bit tense, waiting for the verdict.

The professors looked over to Luna questioningly. She nodded. "Yes, he's a mutant." Cedric relaxed at this. He'd been a bit worried they wouldn't believe him- would think he'd been using some silent variation on the Feather-Light Charm or some such. Heck, until this moment he wasn't entirely sure he'd believed he was truly a mutant himself! It was a relief to know it wasn't his imagination and that he didn't just have some weird magical offshoot or something.

Snape studied the motley collection of assorted items, and asked, "Is there any particular reason you're using origami projects for this demonstration?"

Cedric blinked. He hadn't expected that any of the professors would know what origami was, much less pick up on the fact that he had chosen origami pieces specifically for this. "Uh. Yes, as a matter of fact... I've found that it helps me control the motions of the papers better when they're folded into shapes. Less likely to be dragged on by the air, you see, and gives them specific moving parts."

Snape grunted. "I suppose that's one way of making your own solutions." he muttered to himself. His eyes shifted from the papers on the floor to Cedric. "I hear you've had a lot of accidents with your powers over the last year or so. Perhaps we should move this discussion to ways we could potentially mitigate them so they are less likely to occur at an inopportune time?"

The fourth-year Hufflepuff girl walked into the meeting room in-between morning classes. McGonagall and Snape both had their next lesson coming up soon, so it was just Professors Flitwick and Sprout. Luna glanced over her magical signature as she moved to the center of the room.

"Good morning, Professors."

"Good morning, Miss Sellwood." Professor Flitwick chirped.

Jacey Sellwood strode confidently into the center of the room. "I'm here to show you my powers, right?" she asked.

"That is what we asked you to come here for, yes."

"Alright, then." She pulled out a Muggle lightbulb. "I can make this light up, without a wand or magic. I must have some sort of energy powers."

Then, true to her word, she made a motion with her hand, and the lightbulb lit up. Then she turned it off again. Professor Sprout appeared suitably intrigued, but Flitwick seemed unsure.

Luna was frowning. "Do that again?" she asked.

Jacey shrugged. She lit the bulb again. Luna came forward, studying the lightbulb.

"What else can you do with your powers?" she asked.

Jacey looked startled. "What else?"

"Yeah. One of the other mutants has a very simple power, but it works on several different things. You said you have an energy power." Luna turned from the lightbulb to look her in the face. "But energy powers are the sort of ability that work on lots of things. So, what else can you do?"

Jacey stared at her. "I... I don't- why are you asking me this? I just showed you my power!"

Luna hummed thoughtfully. "You showed me the power of how to use a Muggle battery in a secretive way to turn a lightbulb on. But I didn't see any sign of mutant energy." She turned to the Professors. "She's lying."

Jacey glared at Luna as the Professors ushered her out of the room.

Flitwick turned to Luna once the door was shut. "Why did you confront her like that, Miss Lovegood? Surely you could have simply stated outright that she wasn't telling the truth."

Luna beamed at him. "I wanted to give her the chance to own up to it herself. If she read the letter, she should have known what I can do."

Flitwick huffed. "Considering she came here anyway, I'm not sure she really believes in mutant powers."

"Probably not. But she'll find out soon enough. There's going to be a bit of a kerfuffle. She'll see we're real then."

Sprout startled a bit. "A kerfuffle?"

She nodded. "Yes. It will be a good thing though. It means the Professor's going to come."

Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout shared a look. The Professor? There were a lot of professors out there.

Flitwick appreciated Luna's talents, but he really did wish she'd explain things a bit more clearly sometimes.

A kerfuffle? Honestly.

Tony Kettleburn dashed in at 4:07, Tuesday afternoon. "I'm not late, am I?"

All four Heads of House were present for this particular meeting. Not because it held any more importance than any of the others, but because they all happened to be available.

...And this whole business of watching students show off their strange powers was rather intriguing, though Snape wouldn't be caught dead admitting that was a part of his reason for attending.

Flitwick stared at him for a long moment, intentionally using a stern expression until Tony shrank back a bit. "You are a little late, Mr. Kettleburn... but it's forgivable. However, do try to be on time to any future meetings we might request of you?"

Tony grinned sheepishly. "Yes, Professor. Sorry, Professor." he cleared his throat. "Well, we all know what I'm here for. Shall I begin?"

"Please do," answered McGonagall.

He reached into his bag, produced a series of sticks and metal rods of varying sizes. Juggling them around in the air as if it was nothing to keep track of them all, he tossed one to the floor, leapt, and stood upon it, balancing atop it as easily as if he were standing on solid ground. He continued juggling the sticks, tossing them to the ground one after the other, leaping from stick to stick.

As he neared the end of this little performance, he reached into his pack- which obviously had some sort of Expansion Charm placed on it- and removed a strip of metal that was ten inches tall, about four feet long, very thin, and wobbly. He placed it carefully, then stepped onto it before he released it from his hold. Acting as though this was a gymnastics-style balance beam, he performed a series of acrobatics upon this strip (the teachers only now noticed that he was wearing leather gloves) and, finally, leapt from the strip to alight nimbly atop the head of a pin.

As all four teachers stared in bemused astonishment, both that the young man had come so prepared and that he had chosen to do this as a demonstration of his abilities, Luna burst into applause. "Oh, that was wonderful! Are you planning to be a performer?"

Tony gave her a grin. "I was thinking of becoming a high-rise construction worker, actually- it's a handy little ability to have when you're climbing around in high places."

Neville didn't have to demonstrate his power on Wednesday morning. Since Professor Sprout had already seen it, they figured it wasn't really necessary, and no one wanted to risk him going out of control and flooding the room with giant plants.

However, he still met with them, since he'd mentioned some concerns he wanted to talk through with them about how his mutation affected his schooling.

During this meeting, he actually took Ron's advice (though Ron still liked to pretend he'd never given it), and mustered up the courage to bring up his little Potions problem. To his surprise, Professor Snape actually smacked himself in the face when he heard of it.

Professor McGonagall suggested perhaps developing a separate Potions lesson plan for Neville to follow would be prudent, if he wished to keep accidents like this from continuing.

Snape smacked himself in the face again. It looked like it probably hurt.

The young first-year shuffled his feet in the middle of the meeting room. "I dunno if I'm actually a mutant, but my friend and I kept talking about it and... Well, I just can't get it out of my head that I might be one. You said you have a way to check?"

Luna smiled. "Here. I can tell if you're a mutant or not when you're using your powers... Or you can touch my hand. I can tell that way, too."

"Oh. Okay." The boy looked rather relieved as he held out his hand for her to take.

He wasn't a mutant.

That was just fine with him.

Draco made a face as Professor Snape informed him that it was his turn to attend his "mutant power confirmation and discussion meeting."

"Do I really need to go through all this?" he asked. "Everybody already knows I'm a... a mutant."

"The purpose of this meeting in your case is less about actually proving that you are a mutant, and more about determining what steps we can take to help you as we prepare for your return to classes."

Draco perked up at that. He was so tired of being kept from his classes. He was doing alright with his homework, and he still went to the Great Hall most of the time for meals, but it just wasn't the same. "Do you think you'll let me back soon, then?" He asked.

Snape paused. "We will endeavor to make arrangements that will allow you to possibly do so, yes. However, we have not come to an official decision as of yet. We may require you to reach a certain level of control over your abilities before sending you back into a classroom environment. Even if we do allow you to attend, it may only be for certain classes."

Draco groaned. "This just means you're going to take forever to decide on anything. Again. I can't stay in the dorms forever, Professor!" he whined. "Look, I'm doing a lot better with my- with the- you know. I've been working on it! And I can tell when there's a shift coming on, so even if I did start to have a problem in class, I could just go! It's not as though the teachers wouldn't understand why I was leaving. I can handle it, Professor- really!"

Snape turned to him and raised an eyebrow pointedly at Draco's wildly gesticulating hands, which had already turned bright silver, along with some of the skin across his neck creeping up towards his face. "You may not be shooting liquid-diamond out of your hands every other hour or so as you were the day after your powers manifested, but you are still having quite a bit of trouble with the rest of it. And it's difficult to say when a shift in your skin color is indicative of a power-burst, or when it's simply due to a change in mood. Perhaps you can go back to some of the less intensive classes such as History of Magic or Arithmancy, but I very much doubt you'll be permitted to attend the more action-oriented classes. Defense Against the Dark Arts is out of the question. Transfiguration and Charms are still being debated; you may be allowed to attend lessons which focus on theory, but be excused to work on the practicals in your own time." He gave Draco a wry look. "Of course, none of these potential options will ever be chosen if we do not ever reach the intended meeting. Come along, Mr. Malfoy."

He turned and continued down the corridor. Draco sighed and trailed after him.

He really hoped they'd let him back to classes.

He didn't like being kept alone like this. Even if he did still get to see his dorm-mates.

Over the next several days, various adjustments began to take place within Hogwarts. Some of these were classroom adjustments- Neville was given a brewing station situated rather distantly from the rest of the classroom, with the excuse that if he was going to cause so many accidents, perhaps he shouldn't be so close to the rest of the students.

Some of them involved a certain allotment of excused tardiness and absences from classes, for those mutants whose abilities were potentially destructive to the classroom when they experienced a surge. They required a friend or two who was in-the-know to verify the absence, but even then, Luna could identify whether or not someone had gotten out of control that day or not, and Draco, Harry, and Neville were concerned enough about the possibility of not being allowed to leave if they were having power issues that they were disinclined to abuse this privilege.

Draco was allowed to rejoin classes on a partial basis late on Thursday afternoon, though he was required to leave the room if he felt his skin begin to shift. In Potions, he was not permitted to prepare his own ingredients on the off-chance that too much motion with his hands would set him off, and so Snape made Ron and Harry do it.

And so school continued. The Headmaster and the Heads of House began to relax, feeling like they were beginning to get a handle on things for the first time since the year began. And as the second weekend came and went, some of the hubbub about there being mutants in Hogwarts began to die down. Sure, there was plenty of speculation about who those mutants were, what they could do, and so on... But it was old news by now, and there were other things to be worried about.

That is... For most of the school, anyway. Of course, there are always outliers. And there were plenty of muggleborns at Hogwarts. It would, then, follow that at least one of these muggleborns might not be very happy about these new developments.

Luna had promised that there would be a "kerfuffle" after all.

And Luna is very, very rarely wrong.

Author's Note:

You know...

This chapter wasn't supposed to exist. Not originally, anyway.

I mean, I like how it turned out. It fits my story, and it makes sense to write this section, considering the events themselves were kind of foreshadowed in the previous chapter, and it allowed me to spend a bit more time with Luna and Cedric, whom I've unintentionally kept mostly in the background thus far...

But I started out with a totally different plan for this chapter. The meetings themselves were initially supposed to be a background event that you knew happened but weren't really ever brought up. And then my brain said, "No, you already said they were going to have meetings, so you should write out some of the meetings." And, well... here we are. It's alright though. Gives me a better starting point for the next chapter, anyway. :)

Dumbledore might seem a bit weird in some parts (though that's probably mostly just me not knowing how the heck to write him), but just FYI I'm not making him a bad guy or anything. I don't mind reading bash fics sometimes, but I don't really like the idea of actually writing bash. It just doesn't gel with the way I approach characters, because half the time, characters that get "bashed" are shown in a COMPLETELY OOC, twisted, inaccurate-to-the-point-of-ridiculousness version of their character that doesn't show any of the complexities of personality that quite clearly exist in the original works.

That said, in my opinion, Dumbledore is a bit too used to everyone else always looking to him for answers. He's used to being in charge of situations, he is usually the one who's being depended on for guidance, and he's used to being the most experienced person in the room. As a result, this entire mutant situation has him off-kilter because he's one of the people with the least experience with what's going on, and so at times such as when Harry tells him to go stand in the corner, he's standing there thinking "What for? I've faced off against wizards with much more powerful magic than Harry has, as well as more knowledge and experience. Surely I can handle whatever his mutant ability happens to be?"

I mean sure, he still listens, but it's more for Harry's peace of mind than because he thinks there will be any problems.

And while he probably could handle Harry's ability, or the abilities of any of the Hogwarts mutants in this fic... that's not the point. Because I can think of several mutant abilities that absolutely would pose a challenge to Dumbledore. Take one of the classic X-Men characters, for instance; Cyclops. I can just see Scott pulling off his visor or sunglasses and blasting Dumbledore in the chest before he ever got the chance to do anything, lol.

Draco is such a people person, honestly. He sees a random kid at Madame Malkins, and his immediate response is to start chattering on about Hogwarts-this and Quidditch-that. He constantly surrounds himself with people, and goes out of his way to call attention to himself all. the. time.

Like, I've seen some fanfic versions of Draco where he acts kind of introverted and I'm looking at even just the start of book 1 (the one book I've actually read most of the way through) and I'm like "yeaaaah, the actions of an introvert these are not."