I do not own Harry Potter nor World of Darkness

Alnwick castle, Northumberland, 2nd September 1994 (Saturday)

Francois had been wandering the castle for a few hours by now. He was happy to learn that the Sleepers offered guided tours of the location, but at the same time their presence was making it a lot harder for him to cast any kind of spell. He got away with a simple detection spell he placed on his glasses while in the bathroom, but if he wanted to impress master Boyd he needed something more than some spell residue and an unusually thin Horizon. Sure, the castle itself was a Node, but master Boyd had already suspected as much before sending him there, confirming the man's suspicions barely count as something worth being mentioned. He moved away from the crowd and into the bathroom. He fished his wand from a fanny pack as well as a small piece of chalk and started to draw a circle on the ground. He started to draw a simple alchemical matrix, calling forth the four elements when the bathroom door exploded inwards and the mage found himself staring at the end of a gun.

In front of him, a brunette amazonian woman wearing a well-tailored black tuxedo and a pair of sunglasses was pointing the weapon at him.

"Woha, Woah! What's the big deal? Can't a stage magician fix some last-minute preparations for his show in peace?" almost shouted Francois, his wand still clutched in his left hand.

The woman raised a walkie-talkie from her belt to her mouth.

"Agent X-12 here. Suspected Reality Deviant spotted in the west bathroom. Permission to engage."

Francois's eyes went wide. Reality Deviant was a very specific classification, a derogatory slur that was used only by one very specific faction. He cursed under his breath. Of course that pulse would be from the Technocracy. The bastards probably set it off on purpose to lure them in. Crafty bastards.

He steeled his resolve. He had maybe a fraction of a second to act and he had to make it count. With the location of the Auld Covenant on the line, he'd have no other choice but to act now, consequences be damned. He tossed himself to the side, his hand reaching for the water bottle in the backpack.

A gunshot echoed in the room, a lone bullet whizzing where his head was but a couple seconds before.

With a hard squeeze, the plastic bottle emptied its liquid content, splashing the woman and the lightbulb above her with water.

With an explosion of lightning, the lightbulb exploded, plunging the whole castle in a second of darkness as the raw voltage of the castle struck the agent. Francois got up on his feet, ignoring the twitching woman on the floor and closed himself in the bathroom. He wasn't sure if that previous spell was coincidental or vulgar, but he knew for a fact that what he was to do was probably the single most vulgar spell he could think of. Unfortunately for him, it was also the only way he could think of getting away from the Technocracy's dogs.

He locked himself into one of the stalls, swiftly unrolling a map of Scotland and placing it on the floor. He fished up a lighter and three sticks of incense with one hand, while the other was frantically trying to draw a circle on the floor with chalk. He lit the incense sticks, placing them on the ground just as he heard the sounds of footsteps approaching.

He climbed on top of the toilet seat, closing his eyes to visualize his destination.

"I am Hermes, god of mind, fleetingly swift, emissary, archon and messenger. It is through me that inspiration flows. I am the patron of travelers and the wind upon which they travel, swiftly, boldly, consciously, along the pathways of life."

He jumped down… and landed in the shallow streams Water of Leith, hidden behind some reeds in the middle of Edinburgh. He barely had the time to smile when he felt the world around him spinning, his stomach twisting in the excruciating pain of the single, nastiest Backlash Francois had ever experienced. He fell on his knees, his stomach emptying by itself in the flowing water and his lungs in equal measure. Coughing the vomit from his chest, he stumbled onto the river banks, shivering from the effort. He made it. He got away.

Alnwick castle, Northumberland, 2nd September 1994 (Saturday)

"I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do."

With a roar of frustration, captain Simon Farlane punched the wooden frame of the bathroom stall.

"FUCK!"

His team looked down, barely holding their tears at the side of Julie's corpse.

"Captain…"

"IT WAS A FUCKING SETUP! - he shouted in anger. - Son of a bitch played us like a fucking fiddle! Bet he's laughing his ass off at our expense now!"

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He already lost a team member, he couldn't afford to lose his cool and risk another one.

"Fan out. The visitors must have heard the gunshots. Follow procedure gamma-4."

His team nodded, raising their weapons into position.

Simon leaned down to Julie, whispering softly as he closed her eyes, swearing vengeance on the bastard.

Alnwick castle, Northumberland, 15th September 1994 (Friday)

Uninnseann looked at her friends and students. It had taken some time but she had finally convinced Master Bard Alasdair MacInnes to allow the bardic mages to travel to the source of this mysterious Prime pulse.

Poor Alasdair wanted to send an entire team of Troll knights to accompany them, but Uninnseann had finally managed to convince the Sidhe to drop it. Should they meet another Mage, the presence of an armed contingency would make things difficult… and almost certainly violent.

Much better to leave Mage business to the Mages. And besides, with Uninnseann as the Nadurrachd; Aoife, Ciara and Duncan posing as professors and their fifteen disciples posing as students, they looked like your average school trip. Maybe a bit short in the student numbers for four professors, and perhaps a tad too wide of an age gap between the various students, but nothing too unusual for a school club.

The group had spent a few hours touring the insides of the castle, picking up a few magical residues and an unusually thin Horizon, before they had decided to set up camp in the courtyard and pulled out their instruments and started playing.

The other visitors had been pleasantly surprised by the group's performance, and after about half an hour, a mister Tavish McDougal, representative of the current Duke of Northumberland, had approached Uninnseann to potentially hire the group for future events.

They had exchanged contacts and then the music had resumed, their art simultaneously guiding and masking the bard's spellwork from the Sleepers. Psychedelic substances had been put in metal thermos, mixed within brownies or were simply consumed in between songs during a bathroom break.

The inspection had been thorough and had taken the best part of the afternoon, but after finishing a bagpipe rendition of Uist Tramping Song from Aoife, the man had approached Uninnseann

"You found something?"

"I have. They're here, but… on the other side?"

"Across the Horizon?"

The man shook his head, the minuscule chimes the man insisted on attaching to his long hair offering a small, barely audible ring.

"There's no Horizon here. It's a Pericarp."

Uninnseann's eyes widened.

"They're hiding themselves in an Umbral Realm? How deep is it?"

"Near Umbra. It's actually so close that it might even be closer than the Near Umbra."

Uninnseann whistled in appreciation.

"That's impressive work."

The man smirked. "Well, you can tell that to them."

"You can cross through?"

"It's not as hard as you think it might be. I'll need an isolated location away from the Sleepers, enough DMT for everyone to start ballin'… and everyone needs to learn 'Caledonia' from Dougie Maclean."

Uninnseann raised an eyebrow.

"'Caledonia'?"

"It's imperative for the ritual."

"I highly doubt your favorite song just so happens to be part of a millenia-old ritual to cross into an Umbral Realm."

"Who's the expert in Spirit here?" shot back the man.

With a deep sigh, Uninnseann conceded.

"I'll get the DMT while scouting for a location. Keep an eye on the kids and make sure no one overdose while I'm away."

The man chuckled. "Isn't that why we always take Ciara with us?"

After a few tours around the less savory parts of the city to drop a non-insignificant amount of money in the pockets of a very happy pusher, the Bardic college had finally all they needed. They gathered in a small clearing not too far from the main road, but under the discreet protection of a small wall and few lines of trees. As instructed by Aoife, they gathered around in a circle around the campfire, and the man handed everyone a glass of Ayahuasca while they were pulling out their instruments and started to play. Aoife walked into the circle, tossing something into the fire that caused it to start smoking as he pulled out a pair of hand fans.

I don't know if you can see

With a few dancing moves, the smoke started to swirl around, the air movement caused by his fans sent the smoke across the musicians

the changes that have come over me

In these last few days I've been afraid

The man tossed the DMT into the flames, and directed the smoke towards his fellow Mages

that I might drift away

So I've been telling old stories, singing songs

that make me think about where I came from

Uninnseann took in the smoke, joining her voice to the chorus

But let me tell you that I love you,

that I think about you all the time

Caledonia, you're calling me, and now I'm going home

But if I should become a stranger you know that it would make me more than sad

Caledonia's been everything I've ever had

She grabbed her glass and took a sip.

Stanza after stanza, the effects of the drugs were starting to kick in, as the environment around them started to blur and shift, ever so subtly but very noticeably.

After her second sip, Uninnseann closed her eyes, letting the music guide her voice and magic, connecting herself with the voices of her students and colleagues.

As the music died down and she opened her eyes, she found the group sitting around the fire within a circle of standing stones, with the shadow of an enormous castle towering over the horizon.

"Well, we made it." she muttered, standing up in a daze, trying to ignore the after-effects of the drugs still kicking in her system.

She felt something odd in one of her pockets, and pulled out a handwritten note attached to a small can of… cat food? She opened the note, recognizing her own messy handwriting. Knowing herself, she must have written the note no further ahead than tomorrow afternoon.

For Mrs. Norris.

When she arrives, let her know you want to speak

with Headmaster Dumbledore ASAP.

You'll love Prof. Trelawney btw.

PS: These Hermetics seem unaware of the Consensus and

the Ascension Wars at large, most likely by design.

With a raised eyebrow, she helped her students get on their feet, just in time to hear a meow coming from a dust-coloured cat with bulging yellow, lamp-like eyes.

"Ah, you must be Mrs. Norris." said Uninnseann while opening up the can.

Great Hall, Hogwarts, 15th September 1994 (Friday)

Harry had been impressed with Professor Moody's lessons. Sure, the man certainly lived up to his 'Mad-Eye' title and had the habit of shouting 'constant vigilance' at random points during class, but when it came to dark curses, the man certainly knew his stuff.

At his side, Sally was giddy. Professor Trelawney was adamant something massive was going to happen today, but refused to share with the group exactly what that 'something' was. And since it was nearly the end of the dinner feast, the others were starting to think that the professor had fucked up her prediction.

Suddenly, the doors slammed open and a very out of breath Mr. Filch rushed in a mad sprint towards the headmaster.

Silence fell on the hall as the caretaker spoke to Dumbledore, which in turn seemed… concerned?

With a brisk pace, the two men walked out of the room, closing the door behind them.

"Are you sure this isn't some elaborate prank?" asked Dumbledore as the two men crossed the wooden bridge.

"I've got more than enough experience for that!" almost shouted Argus, pointing at the group of people standing at the end of the bridge.

They were an eclectic group of individuals, about fifteen of them in their late teens or early twenties at the oldest, while the other four looked much older.

They were all wearing variations of the same clothes, a traditional Scottish red and green kilt, a pair of tall white socks that reached all the way to their knees and some sort of shiny black leather jacket and sported absurdly colorful hairstyles that wouldn't look out of place during after a particularly nasty explosion in one of Snape's classes. A handful of them had replaced the leather jacket with a brown-greenish corset with a shawl that… was it made out of moss or did it just look like it?

The one thing that caught Albus's attention, however, was the fact that all of them carried around some kind of musical instrument. About half of them had a variation on a flute, while the rest were evenly split between violins, harps, drums and even a couple of bagpipes.

A woman carrying one of the flutes and sporting a light blue mohawk approached the two, expending her hand with a bright smile on her face.

"Headmaster Dumbledore, I presume?"

He shook her hand, trying his best to hide his confusion. He was fairly sure he never met anyone this… colorful.

"In the flesh. I don't suppose we met before? I think I would remember someone as…striking as you."

The woman chuckled.

"We haven't. Name's Uninnseann Boyle, Sahajiya. Currently the Nadurrachd of this little expedition for the Bardic College. - She pointed at the three older members of the group. - These are fellow Sahajiya Aoife and Duncan, as well as Ciara, Verbena. The others are our students."

"I see. - said Albus, trying to make sense of those unusual titles. - I am afraid I've never heard of this 'Bardic College'. I am correct to assume you are some sort of magical school?"

Uninnseann shrugged. "For lack of a better term, I suppose we are."

"In that case, allow me to welcome you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If you don't mind me asking… how exactly did you end up here?"

"A few days ago we felt a massive surge of Prime energy. We tracked the source to Alnwick castle and organized a small trip to investigate the phenomenon. Once there, our resident Spirit expert…"

"That would be me." said a man with long hair filled with tiny chimes with an exaggerated bow.

"... discovered your Umbral Realm, we crossed the Pericarp and discovered our future selves left a note telling me to contact you as soon as possible, as well as a can of cat food for Mrs. Norris."

The cat meowed as Filch took her in his arms. Dumbledore smiled sagely, while mentally trying his best to figure out exactly what was going on. He had seen the term Pericarp being used to describe the wards that kept muggles away from Hogwarts, but that was from some very old books. He had absolutely no clue what an Umbral Realm was, but it was probably some archaic term to describe Hogwarts' grounds or maybe the Forbidden Forest as it was before Hogwarts. Not that it mattered too much, anyway.

"I see. While I'm afraid I haven't fully grasped some of the information you shared right now, I think I understood the general sentiment behind it."

Uninnseann raised an eyebrow. "I thought I had made myself as clear as possible. Do you wish me to elaborate on something specific?"

"If it's not too much trouble, Miss… Uninnseann, was it?"

"You can drop the miss if you want to. Neither Verbena nor Sahajiya are big on titles and formalities, and the rest of the College is much of the same idea."

"Actually, that could be a good place to start. 'Verbena' and 'Sahajiya'."

The group looked at each other in confusion.

"Those are… our Traditions. They determine the lenses through which we see and utilize magic. - She pointed at the wand Dumbledore had at his hip. - Kind of like the way you Hermetics use wands. You… you are a Hermetic Mage, aren't you?"

Dumbledore and Filch looked at one another.

Uninnseann mentally kicked her future self. 'Unaware of the Consensus and the Ascension Wars at large' my ass, they didn't even know there were Traditions other than their own! How high was her future self for thinking something like that was enough to send the correct message? She smiled at Dumbledore.

"I think… - she began tentatively, trying to fish for anything to grasp onto. - … we might have rushed a bit and just… assumed you had the same… organization structure as we do. We were… clearly… in the wrong."

"So it would seem. Perhaps it would be best if we were to re-start from the beginning?"

suggested Dumbledore.

Uninnseann nodded. She hadn't felt this amount of nerves since she saw a Techy agent wandering near her old house in Surrey.

To her relief, she noticed Aoife and Duncan pulling out a note of their own from their pockets. Hopefully, their own future selves had sent something more useful than a vague note and can of cat food…

Technocracy vs Hermetics! Because I had to justify the reason why the Technocracy didn't notice the Prime surge caused by the Goblet of fire. Still, I hope you enjoyed the scene, I had fun writing it.

Welcome the Bardic College! Reaching Hogwarts and... it's a bit more confusing than they expected.

Re-checking the story, I noticed I did leave a note of a scene that I never wrote just after this one with the Bards meeting Minsiter Fudge, but... for some reasons I skipped it. And considering I am in the middle of exam season, I'm not sure I'll be in the headspace to write it. That means this serie might go on a small hiatus until the end of the exam season or until I get the inspiration for that scene, sorry to dissapoint you all.