Inside the DOM:
"It doesn't matter!" said a man's voice. "There are other ways in —WE'VE GOT THEM, THEY'RE HERE!"
Harry spun around. They were back in the Brain Room and, sure enough, there were doors all around the walls. He could hear footsteps in the hall behind them as more Death Eaters came running to join the first.
"Luna — Neville — help me!"
The three of them tore around the room, sealing the doors as they went: Harry crashed into a table and rolled over the top of it in his haste to reach the next door.
"Colloportus!"
There were footsteps running along behind the doors; every now and then another heavy body would launch itself against one, so it creaked and shuddered. Luna and Neville were bewitching the doors along the opposite wall — then, as Harry reached the very top of the
room, he heard Luna cry, "Collo — aaaaaaaaargh . . ."
He turned in time to see her flying through the air. Five Death Eaters were surging into the room through the door she had not reached in time; Luna hit a desk, slid over its surface and onto the floor on the other side where she lay sprawled, as still as Hermione.
"Get Potter!" shrieked Bellatrix, and she ran at him. He dodged her and sprinted back up the room; he was safe as long as they thought they might hit the prophecy —
"Hey!" said Ron, who had staggered to his feet and was now tottering drunkenly toward Harry, giggling. "Hey, Harry, there are brains in here, ha ha ha, isn't that weird, Harry?"
"Ron, get out of the way, get down —"
But Ron had already pointed his wand at the tank.
"Honest, Harry, they're brains — look — Accio Brain!"
The scene seemed momentarily frozen. Harry, Ginny, and Neville and each of the Death Eaters stopped in spite of themselves to watch the top of the tank as a brain burst from the green liquid like a leaping fish. For a moment it seemed suspended in midair, then it soared
toward Ron, spinning as it came, and what looked like ribbons of moving images flew from it, unravelling like rolls of film —
"Ha ha ha, Harry, look at it —" said Ron, watching it disgorge its gaudy innards. "Harry, come and touch it, bet it's weird —"
"RON, NO!"
Harry did not know what would happen if Ron touched the tentacles of thought now flying behind the brain, but he was sure it would not be anything good. He darted forward but Ron had already caught the brain in his outstretched hands.
The moment they made contact with his skin, the tentacles began wrapping themselves around Ron's arms like ropes.
"Harry, look what's happen — no — no, I don't like it — no, stop — stop —"
But the thin ribbons were spinning around Ron's chest now. He tugged and tore at them as the brain was pulled tight against him like an octopus's body.
"Diffindo!" yelled Harry, trying to sever the feelers wrapping themselves tightly around Ron before his eyes, but they would not break. Ron fell over, still thrashing against his bonds as the tentacles completely ensnared Ron's head underneath them...
It was at that exact moment an accident happened.
There was no way for anyone to know why it happened... Maybe it was because of the numerous broken time turners wreaking havoc in the surroundings... or maybe it was just the magically charged atmosphere or maybe it was something else entirely but suddenly in that exact moment everyone and everything in that room... froze.
From the death eater's malevolent gazes to the panic in the eyes of the teenagers, from the floating dust particles to the spell fizzling through the air, everything was frozen in time.
It was as if the room had been completely isolated in a different dimension where time had completely stopped. And amidst the frozen chaos in the middle of that room, a tiny crack appeared in the space... an unusually stable crack.
The crack was only there for about a nanosecond before disappearing. But that minuscule amount of time was enough for an invisible little soul to escape from the crack straight into the suspended chaos in the room.
The little soul was unconscious, but... not completely.
It was as unconscious as a plant and, just like a plant knew where to send its roots to survive, the soul too knew what it had to do to survive.
The soul moved through the frozen air, unbothered by any obstacles in its path, towards the only empty space where it could reside and survive, towards—the closest tentacled brain.
But the soul didn't find the cosy little home it was looking for in there... because the brain as it turns out, wasn't actually made to house a soul (well, at least not a human one) so sadly it was immediately expelled through the feelers... straight into the red-haired human in its grasp.
But the soul didn't leave the tentacled brain empty-handed.
The soul was a cheap stake in his previous life, the kind who couldn't stay in a fancy hotel and resist grabbing a few free towels along as souvenirs. And that ingrained habit worked its magic here too... and it grabbed something miraculous from the brain, something out of this world.
The souvenir it took from the tentacled brain was something that came from a much higher dimension.
It was a system, a one-of-a-kind artificial intelligence made by a higher lifeform for their own use... and sadly it had been left to rot in this brain ever since it was fished out of The Veil by the Unspeakables, who weren't smart enough to understand its mysteries. But finally, this miraculous system got the chance to boot up again... in the brain of one Ronald Weasley.
[GAMER SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
[BOOTING...]
[BOOTING...]
[ERROR S9009: WORLD INCOMPATIBLE]
[ERROR # ##$...]
[SEARCHING...]
[SOLUTION FOUND: FOLLOW PROTOCOL LIZARD]
[REMOVING UNESSENTIAL COMPONENTS]
[REMOVING INVENTORY...]
[REMOVING DUNGEON SKILL...]
[DISCARDING REWARDS...]
[DISCARDING SYSTEM STORE...]
[...]
[GAMER SYSTEM DOWNGRADING...]
[MAGE SUBSYSTEM RETAINED...DISCARDING THE REST]
[FINALIZING...]
[WELCOME HOST—]
[NEW ERROR DETECTED!]
[ERROR 201: FOUND TWO INDIVIDUAL HOSTS]
[SEARCHING...]
[SOLUTION FOUND: FOLLOWING PROTOCOL X101]
[SOUL CHECK...]
[SOULS COMPATIBLE]
[PERFORMING EMERGENCY SURGERY...]
After unexpectedly finding two souls in the brain of the red-haired human it had inhabited, The Gamer System—No, the Mage System, decided to... merge them.
It acted not unlike an overworked housewife, who after not finding the desired vegetables in the refrigerator, decided to just mash up everything available and call it a new dish.
The new dish or the new soul would have both the memories and the qualities of Ron Weasley from this Wizarding world and the wandering soul of Sam from the modern world.
Now, as for who was Sam, and how he came to be in this room in the DOM? Well... to know that we need to go back a few...
Sam was a little-known struggling stand-up comedian in a small city.
He grew up in an orphanage and got a normal 9 to 5 Job after graduating from community college. But he lost that Job soon after, because of COVID and then whilst unemployed he tried his hand at performing gigs at local bars.
He has always been someone who doesn't have much of a filter on his mouth and has a particular talent for making mean jokes.
Sometimes his jokes get him laughs from his surroundings and other times, punches, but it was entertaining for everyone nonetheless. So he decided that since he couldn't stop his mouth anyway, why not monetize this talent to earn some money.
And that turned out to be the stupidest decision of his life and also the thing which got him killed...
How did comedy get him killed, you may ask?
Well, it went something like this...
It was a rainy day, and he was at his usual jaunt performing a gig on the stage and getting some good laughs from the audience here and there and it was all going fine...
Until the door opened and entered the big bad Villain...
Well, calling him a Villain is a tad overdramatic but since he's the reason Sam died... he didn't care...
Anyway, the Villian looked like your typical Jock who had never moved on from his 'college phase', as they call it. He was wearing a tight football T-shirt that barely covered his beefed-up muscles, a blond girlfriend by his side and three indistinguishable lackeys following behind him laughing at all his sexist jokes.
Things were all calm at first, they took their seat, ordered a few drinks and started talking among each other ignoring the gig, which was fine by Sam. But then, The Jock, who probably got bored or something, suddenly started heckling and interrupting him to get some laughs from his lackeys.
It was the usual... "Oh! That was so not funny!" "Am I supposed to laugh at that!" "You are so ugly, Bitch!" "You dress like a woman" "You are so gay,"
Of course, it wasn't Sam's first gig so he was professional and ignored the guy with ease and continued with his thing. But it seems the Jock wasn't satisfied with that... as he seemed to take being ignored as a personal insult and started doubling down with his heckling, making even the customers around him uneasy.
A few minutes later, he crossed a line and Sam felt that he's had enough...
"Your mama teach you those jokes, Gayboy... you should send her to me for a few days and I'll teach her some funny new things...HAHA,"
Now, Sam wasn't the type to be usually bothered by these things, because, firstly, he never had a mama. And secondly, because he had an unusually thick skin (one of the perks of growing up in an orphanage,).
Still, that day he just wasn't in the mood to suffer in silence... he didn't know if it was because he'd had a few to drink before the gig or if it was because the guy looked so much like his high school bully, but... he decided that he was going to retaliate.
Now, the one thing you need to know about comedians is that they are usually very good at reading people.
They have to be; to come up with good jokes spontaneously to make their audience laugh. But another perk of that skill is you can come up with the most incisively hurtful things at the most opportune moments to deal with your prey... you can easily determine the hidden insecurities of your target and bring them out into the open to make them cry. And Sam decided to do just that...
"You know "Dude" just because God gave you a mouth, doesn't mean that you need to use it, and bring down the collective IQ of the whole room..."
He picked apart the jocks' defences one by one, from his clothes to his face, to his teeth, he didn't leave anything behind. He completely opened the tap on his usually repressed inner thoughts and he went at him.
The boisterous laughter from the audience invigorated him and he started getting even more personal. He went for all the insecurities, real or not, from the guy's daddy issues to his mommy issues and even his sister complex.
The audience was laughing their asses off by then and the Jock's face was getting progressively redder with that sound. Sam should have stopped there at that moment and spared him as he could see that the forced smile on that guy was only an inch away from a crying one... but he didn't.
He dug the final nail in the coffin with, "Tell me, 'Dude', is it true what they say about steroids and small dicks...Oh! Never mind, you don't need to answer that. Your girlfriend's sniggering tells me everything," and that was the final straw for the man.
Humiliation and testosterone were a very bad combination, Sam found out that day.
Safe to say there was immediately a bar fight and Sam being not much of a fighter and outnumbered meant that he ended up as a casualty.
*Sigh*
Anyway, the next time he opened his eyes, he was inside some kind of an office, it was a small cluttered one with a giant worker with huge dark circles sitting behind the desk, perusing through a green file that had Sam's name on the outside.
The worker immediately began telling Sam in a drone-like voice that he was in the Afterlife office and that he would be shortly told where his next destination would be.
Now, according to the file, that contained the summary of his life, he only had two of the usual three options available to him as the option of Heaven was closed for him because apparently he made fun of too many people in his gigs and now he would have to pay for it...
Ugh... Who would have thought that you could get retribution for making fun of people... Fuck you, Ricky Gervais!
Anyway, since he couldn't go to heaven the other option would have to be hell, and Sam was terrified of that.
He could recall all sorts of horrible stories the nuns at his orphanage used to tell him. About things that happen to sinners in hell, from being boiled alive to being made to dance naked on burning flames... he didn't want to go through any of that.
So he hurriedly began to recall his whole life to come up with some of his good deeds so that he could persuade the worker to let him off, but... unfortunately, he came up short.
Fuck! Should have listened to those preachers about doing one good deed a day.
Alas, it was too late to regret and now he could only hope that he could sell his soul to the devil or something and wouldn't have to suffer too much.
"You're lucky, boy... you get a third option," said the overworked worker.
It seems he wasn't a complete arsehole and did a few good deeds here and there so the worst scenario didn't come true and he wasn't left to rot in hell and was given the third option which was a chance to be reborn back on Earth.
But there was a hook... he would have to first spend a few lifetimes as a lower life form before he was allowed to go back to being a human. And the worker in front of him was "kind" enough to give him three options to choose from... A Male Ant, A Male Bee and a Male Sea Horse.
"..."
Now, anyone with even simple biology knowledge would notice a pattern here. It seems once again he was punished for being a comedian. Who the hell knew that doing Comedy would be such a very dangerous job?
"W-Why? Why those three? Was it because I made fun of feminists during my gigs? But that was all in good jest... You have to believe me!. In fact, I-I identify as a feminist! I swear!"
Sam tried very hard to plead his case to the after-life office worker but it was all useless and the man didn't budge at his half-hearted explanation, "Please, hurry. I have to go to a party after this," he said impatiently.
"Fine!" Sam whined in defeat before picking up the piece of paper in front of him to select the least uncomfortable option out of the three he was given.
If he chose to be reborn as a male ant, his only purpose in life would be to mate with the queen, along with a hundred other ants (Ugh!) and then die shortly afterwards. The life of a male bee wasn't much different they too only live to serve as genetic material.
"So it seems like the Sea-horse is the best one in this...at least I would live a little longer..." Sam sighed and finally decided on his choice but just as when he was about to tick Sea-horse on the paper, the door to the "room" suddenly slammed open.
"S-Sir! T-The mistress is causing chaos again!" said a translucent ghost midget with no legs in a high-pitched anxious tone.
"Ah! Fudge! Not again," The worker groaned before getting up from his seat, "And, you, boy! You better be done with this by the time I get back here or I'll chuck you straight to hell," he warned menacingly before rushing out of the door along with the midget.
"Sure! Sure!" he replied sarcastically while sending a middle finger behind the worker's back for his self-satisfaction before turning back to the task at hand, "huuu... so it's a goodbye to being human, huh..."
"That seems like a really hard choice..." a squeaky voice abruptly said came from beside his ear scaring the crap out of him.
"Argh! Fuck!" Sam cursed as he jumped and fell from his chair while quickly turning his head to see who it was.
A tiny fairy with transparent red wings behind her was blinking innocently at him while waving both her hands.
"W-What the fuck are you?" he blurted out while trying to get his breathing under control.
"Me? Oh...Umm..." the girl thought for a suspiciously long time about her job before answering, "I am...a part-time worker! That's right I am a part-time worker here."
"If you say so 'part-timer', " Sam sighed before shaking his head, he picked up the chair and took back his seat.
Too many things had happened one after the other, so he was kind of immune to weird things by now and had just decided to go with the flow. "What do you want, Part-timer? If you can't see I am a little busy being miserable here, so why don't you scram and leave me alone to my misery..."
"But none of these choices looks very good, do they?" the little fairy commented in an innocently squeaky tone while unceremoniously taking a seat on his shoulder, "Won't you be very miserable if you choose one of them?" she asked swinging her legs back and forth
"Of course not! It's my lifelong dream! I've always wanted to see what it would be like to live as a simp ant or a bee in a queen's harem and to be exploited by her daily,"
"Really!" she exclaimed in shock as her eyes widened comically.
"No, you idiot!" he said while rolling his eyes, "I was obviously being sarcastic,"
"Oh! Sarcastic! Wow..." she said with a look of amazement on her face while clapping her hands as if she was hearing sarcasm for the first time.
"It's not like I have a choice here..." he mumbled in a depressed tone, "That ugly duck face only gave me these three options to choose from. and I'd rather choose one of them than go to hell..."
There was silence for a few seconds before the fairy spoke again, "Hmm, Maybe... Maybe I can help you with this..."
"What? For real? Y-You can send me back to Earth as a human!"
"Ah! No-No! I can't do that," she said shaking her rapidly, "I am not in charge of that."
"You aren't?" Sam asked as the hope which had risen up in his stomach slammed back down into the ground, "Then what good are you?"
"Well I can't do anything on Earth, but I..." she said with a hesitant look on her face before suddenly asking, "But first tell me do you have a favourite novel?"
"Hmm...Who knows..." That was such a first-date question, that Sam answered unconsciously, "A song of ice and fire, Lord of the Rings, Maybe... Harry Potter?"
"Ah! Harry Potter's perfect!" she exclaimed with a pleased smile on her face, "Now wait a second..." she said before flying above his head and closing her tiny eyes for a few seconds and then she opened them again with a delighted look, "I got it! I know just the place to send you and the timing is perfect too,"
"Send me?" Sam asked in a bewildered tone, "W-What are you—"
"Oh No! He's coming back!" she cried in an alarmed tone while looking at the door "Quick! You need to leave!" she said before waving her hand through the air and creating a small crack in the space in front of Sam.
Sam's eyes immediately widened as he suddenly realised that the girl wasn't just some small part-time worker but knew some serious magic.
But he also remembered at that moment the choice of novels he had given her and realised that he had made a huge mistake.
"No! Wait! I haven't read all the Harry Potter books—"
"Bye! Bye! little boy!" she smiled while waving her tiny hands and sending his soul straight into the dark abyss of the crack, "Have fun in the Wizarding World!"
/
Check out my other fic: Jon Snow SI
And if you want to read a few chapters ahead, you can go to: pa*reon.c*m/lazywizard