A/N: so this is a collaborative story between me an my friend (oliver Faulkner, will update with fanfiction name when he has an account) I hope you enjoy it as much as we do writing it
please leave comments as it will inspire us to write more
"Where am I?" The words rang hollowly echoing into empty space. There was a world forming beyond my senses in the white gloom, slowing rebuilding itself into the norms of ups and downs and walls. A room came into view whose architect clearly considered gravity as a thing for other people because there where bookshelves that were filled beyond the brim that bent to an almost right angle along the domed ceiling. The air was alive with scents I had never known but felt so achingly familiar. As shapes began to form more recognisably the first I really noticed was the circular walls filled with elaborate portraits of people from all walks of life each more oddly dressed than the last. Weirder still, they moved and muttered as if they were starring through their frames at me and not the reverse, like I was the one on display in some bizarre aquarium. The depth of them was off-putting somehow, like someone had made an oil painting in three dimensions.
"Finally back among the living, young man?" came a creaking, weary voice seemingly out of nowhere. I look for the source but find no-one, my eyes roaming across instruments and devices I couldn't begin to understand or even name but the feeling of familiarity haunted me still.
"Up here boy" the voice groused.
Boy? I haven't been a boy in a long time. Something about that strikes a chord in my brain I couldn't quite put my finger on, but insatiable curiosity made me look all the same and see one of the grander portraits starring unerringly back at me. He was an unseemly looking man who wore an expression of distaste as easily as he wore his clothes, the way the man's beady black eyes latched squarely onto mine and seemed to dance in secret amusement was unsettling, but I had seen it done before with technology, just never with so many screens. Beneath the portrait the name Phineas Nigellus Black was inscribed.
"Much as you may believe otherwise, you're not crazy. I would know, my lot all but wrote the book on the subject. Suffice to say, it really is me speaking, Mister Michael O'Connor" the portrait said.
I almost jump from the chair I realise I'm sitting in. No screen in the world should have known my name.
"Fret not, young Albus will be along shortly. The Headmaster might well explain your..." the figure in the painting continued amicably oblivious to my bewilderment, pausing as if searching for the right words while he gently stroked his braided beard "...unique circumstances, brilliant man our Albus. I always said so." he settled on, looking as if the words left a sour taste in his mouth.
As if on cue the pale oaken doors I hadn't noticed beyond the back of my far too large chair open and a man more ancient than should be politely possible wandered inside. A man whose beard went so long it was tucked into his belt, who wore shoes of garish pink fabric and robes of fantastic magenta with golden thread woven into the sleeves and collar making the peculiar man look both like a vagabond and a King all at once. It wasn't until the strange man reached to adjust his half moon glasses and peered down at me with periwinkle blue eyes that the clues finally slotted into place, ridiculous as it was.
"Dumbledore" the name comes out my mouth before I can stop it or even really comprehend it. He smiles serenely down at me, and only now do I realise either he was part giant or I'd gotten quite a bit smaller.
"I suspected you might know who I am, and not for the reasons most might think Mister O'Connor. So you know who I am, I'm afraid that puts us in a spot of bother." the man exclaimed with a gentle smile.
"Micheal, my name is Micheal." I replied instinctively, the woods tumbling from my mouth without prompting. The impossible man circled his desk and took a seat with far more grace than I could have at a fraction of his immense age, stroking his beard thoughtfully.
"I confess for all my brilliance its more often than I care to admit that the intricacies of magic eludes me in its entirety for all I grasp more than most. But as to how you managed to appear in a place it should be quite impossible to appear, I must admit I'm quite lost. Would you care to lend an old man a clue?" He asked in a kindly tone looking thoroughly amused by the fact rather than the worried or overly cautious I'd likely be if our roles were reversed.
"How... is any of this happening? How am I here? Why am I here? Did you do this?" I asked half accusingly, half in terror and half again in wonder.
The idea occurred that this was clearly some kind of extremely lucid dream and a memory from the dusty corners of my brain sprang forth. If this were a lucid dream there should have been a basketball bouncing without help. I had no idea why that was true, but books hadn't let me down yet. I glanced around quickly and noted the gleaming sword of Godric Gryffindor and the old ragged Sorting Hat and the perch that must have belonged to the phoenix Fawkes but sadly, there was no basketball in Dumbledore's office.
What a strange thought that was.
"If you're searching for what I believe you are, I'm rather afraid you won't find it. A similar exercise exists among practitioners of the mind arts to tell imaginings from reality, suffice to say I am quite convinced you're not dreaming." the Headmaster eloquently stated as if reading my thoughts, and perhaps he was or maybe he really was as brilliant as everyone thought "I haven't ruled out that fact that we might both be dreams of another entirely however." He added, promptly dashing my praise of genius and instead wondering if he was even more barmy than believed.
"I also believe you may well require a mirror." He added as an afterthought.
A flick of his wrist and he brought to bear the fabled Deathly Hallow – I had one just like it at home – and with an almost lazy swish of his wand sparks of silvery light trailed through the air like smoke moving through water and the bookshelf nearest to me transformed into a full body mirror.
If the display of actual, real, genuine magic that was so much more than lights because it felt like magic hadn't convinced me the sight of my scrawny and pale thirteen year old self would definitely have done the trick. A dozen details I hadn't forgotten but had blurred with time now stared back at me as bold as brass. The small scar over one eye from falling off my bike. The way my ears were slightly lopsided, my mouth slightly crooked. It was impossible this was me, but equally impossible it was anyone else.
"This... this... " the words would not come out and I was struggling to breath
"While I cannot speak for whatever powers or circumstances brought you to our happy school, I believe it was done with purpose. What that path entails my boy, is entirely of your own choosing." he said in that grandfatherly voice that was exactly the way I'd imagined it in my head and somehow, with a magic all of its own the words did make me feel a bit better. If only a little.
I met the old man's eyes and felt a million questions bounce around in my head each struggling to be said first, but there was also the realisation that if this was all in fact real, the possibilities that lay before me where literally limitless. My curiosity would never settle, but I was determined to live the life I'd always wanted. In the words of another, or possibly future Albus Dumbledore the only direction to go was 'on' and so onwards I shall go.
"What year is this?" I asked after a pause that felt like a lifetime, my voice sounding far too high to my own ears. It hadn't been that bad last time surely?
A fond chuckle escaped from the lips of the ancient wizard as if we were the oldest of friends telling a familiar joke. He looked down at me with twinkling blue eyes and leant forward as if to confess a secret.
"1993, I hope you find this too your liking? I find it to be rather promising myself."
While I sat silently screaming in disbelief Dumbledore lived up to his Gryffindor roots and soldiered on, maybe to give my mind something to do other than throw up a new four-oh-four message every three seconds.
"How am I here? You must know, you're Dumbledore." I prompted hopefully
"In truth I can scarce begin to understand the how, much less the why. Several theories of course but each as unlikely as the next. Your arrival was altogether rather mundane, you were simply absent on moment and here the next. Making it all the more fantastical in its own way." he replied softly
The idea that not even the great mind of Albus Dumbledore could fathom my sudden emergence in the land of fiction wasn't a comforting one. I felt myself began to shake like a leaf caught in a whirlwind. Faster than an old man should be able to move Dumbledore crossed the space between us and crouched down, bringing my eyes to meet his own shimmering with sympathy and gentle encouragement
"Fear not Michael, magic may be a thing we can never fully comprehend but in this instnace I believe it's purpose rather clear. There will always be a home here at Hogwarts for those who need it, never forget that." he quietly promised, before tapping a knobbly finger against the side of his crooked nose "If you are here it is because you where meant to be here, and that is a rather encouraging thought is it not?"
There was an almost musical tone to his words, ancient and wise and yet full of wonder as if he too was both an old man and a child at heart all at once. I couldn't say if it was that thought or the comfort his mere presence brought, but I believed him with all my heart. I nodded mutely stubbornly resisting the urge to wipe my eyes as we stood and he guided me away from his office and into the castle proper.
"You'll need to be sorted of course, as you may be aware your House will be like your family during your time at Hogwarts. We've a supply of spare wands, but I will write to Mr Ollivander and see about acquiring you your own, a far superior tool for any aspiring practitioner of magic I assure you, particularly one I daresay has your hunger for it." he offered with a knowing smile, and I strangely felt myself blush at being so transparent.
Despite his jovial ways and my still dubious acceptance that he was in fact real, a thread of guilt squirmed in my gut as he guided me through a complete labyrinth of corridors that seemed to have little rhyme or reason to them.
"Sir, you should know, where I come from-" I began unsurely feeling more nervous than I had been in a lifetime .
"It's a dangerous thing to know one's own future. Voldemort believed he was bound by one singular fate and dedicated himself to averting it, only to create that future for himself." The Headmaster interrupted with something approaching steel in his voice and for a moment I wasn't looking at the barmy old man he'd become but the wizard strong enough to topple Grindelwald's armies. "Whatever fate has in store for me, for all of us, I believe we will meet it with our heads held high, backs straight and hearts as loud as lions. 'Do not go gentle' as the poem says, wouldn't you agree?" he asked pointedly as he looked down at me with blazing blue eyes. I could only nod mutely, feeling ice sliver down my back as I realised he might well be right.
We arrived at the Great Hall much to my surprise as I was sure we were still for too high up to be there, and I wondered if the stairs where magical in their own right. The Hall was filled to bursting with more young faces than I could ever remember seeing in one place, hundreds upon hundreds of people sat across four long tables watched over by the staff at the high table at the far end. Banners of golden lions, silver serpents, black badgers and bronze ravens adored the four tables apiece. Barely visible ghosts floated among the students.
Dumbledore stode into the Great Hall and I followed in his wake as all the nagging thoughts screaming inside my head evaporated into bliss as my eyes hungrily drank in the splendour. It was magnificent, awe inspiring. Words simply couldn't do justice to the sight of the clear nights sky woven among a tapestry of candles.
It was everything I'd ever dreamed it would be.
Except for one person, everyone was staring at me, including the first years. I tried to hide while finding familiar faces in the crowd. At the Gryffindor table, I noticed a group of ginger heads and a girl with bushy hair next to a scrawny boy with messy black hair likely hiding a lightning-shaped scar.
The Headmaster left me with the first years with a comforting squeeze to my shoulder before circling to his high chair among the dozen or so Professors, most of whom I recognised based on the descriptions I'd read even if they weren't quite how I'd pictured them either.
"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts, now before we engage in our delightful sorting ceremony and induct our new young friends into our beloved school, I wonder if you'll permit an old man a moment to marvel at something altogether new. What that is? I confess, I haven't the foggiest. Wonderful, isn't it? The result however, is a new student starting in his third year. I've no doubt wherever our Sorting Hat deigns to place him he will find a warm welcome and many friends happy to help in any areas his education may be a tad rusty, he might just surprise you in ways we may not expect."
Those rare few who weren't looking at me now where and the awkward fear started to fill me up. A fear of being watched, the nagging fear that somehow this was a mistake and I couldn't possibly belong, and most especially a fear that I would trip over my brand new old feet.
"Micheal O'Connor" my name rang out across the hall I slowly walked towards what I assumed was professor McGonagall holding the sorting hat. She ticked every box from her book description, but somehow wasn't quite what I imagined her to be either. The imperious and stern expression however was exactly what I pictured, when she tried to offer a reassuring smile it came across oddly uncomfortable.
I shivered in fear an hoped no one noticed as I sat on the stool before everyone the stares had turned to whispers as the ragged and ratty Hat slowly reached my head. A detail the never mentioned in the books was that it really smelled terrible.
"Well isn't this interesting experience beyond your years, my such a complicated one. Courage aplenty, but loyalty too and a determination matched by few. Perplexing, contradictory some might say. Your thoughts seem a hive of bees! Only one place for a mind like that" the Hat replied in a voice that wouldn't have been out of place on the Mad Hatter
Then the doubt that had slowly built up was smashed into pieces, and I felt like I was flying as the Hat called out one word that kindled all my dreams.
"Ravenclaw!"
Achievement Unlocked
"Down the Rabbit Hole..."