[AI] Building up speed as we're approaching the hill.

[divinestsense]

7th year was proving a bit more slippery than the last six.

On the surface, everything was going to plan. They were the kings of the school, or at least Sirius and James were, Remus and Peter buoyed by association. They had the cloak, they had the map, they had an undeniable reputation for mischief. Sirius had the unrivaled distinction of being the only student of independent means. James was Gryffindor's champion Quidditch captain yet again, and had defied the odds to become Head Boy. The term ahead of them ought to have been bright.

Well over a month had passed and Sirius still didn't quite have his feet under him. What ought to have been their year, the big men on campus, was instead stolen by a shadow on the periphery, blooming bigger as the hushed voices of worried students refused to say something so simple as a name. Sirius had worked hard over the summer months to repair the fraying thread between himself and his friends, had been more diligent and modest than perhaps ever in his nearly eighteen years with 7th year looming large and glorious in his imagination. 7th year, which was shaping up to be filled with unsettling headlines and an ever-growing divide in the student body. Turns out it wasn't their year after all. It was Voldemort's.

Presently, though, they were laughing about Peter. Or, James and Sirius were, with Remus doing a poor job of masking his pained expression with pity. Muggle Studies had seemed an easy class, easy enough even for Peter, sheltered and perpetually nervous about things he didn't understand. Remus was half-Muggle, and Sirius loved Muggles, talked about their music and fashion and charming innovations with enthusiasm. Too much enthusiasm, as it turned out, as despite Remus' painstaking efforts in helping Peter with his coursework, Peter had still written an entire parchment enthusiastically expounding on the similarities between Muggle and Wizarding modes of transportation. Muggle automotives, he reasoned, could fly just like brooms. Why, his friend Sirius had bought a flying motorbike just this past summer. Peter had even been allowed a ride, had thought it rather loud but better-suited to long journeys. He was currently sitting downstairs with his infinitely patient Muggle Studies professor, rewriting the entire page.

"He must've been so excited to actually know about something he didn't listen to a word you said," Sirius said, looking back to Remus over his shoulder as they bustled upstairs to their dorm.

Comments

[prongsdefiant]

"Wouldn't be the first time. I cribbed off Moony," James said, pushing open the door to their room. It was a bit cramped with four boys (none of whom were really neat, though James was worst than most) but there was no place in the world that was happier for James, dirty socks and all. Well, correction. There was one place that might be happier but Evans wasn't exactly obliging.

As the door swung inward, James frowned a little. Gone were the accoutrement of four Seventh-years and instead it seemed like the castle had switched rooms on them. No beds. No trunks. No mish-mash of parchment and books and sweets tossed pell-mell across the floor. James lifted his wand and pushed up his glasses a bit, unsure of what he should really be expecting. Normally a Hogwarts room change was innocent enough but with Voldemort gathering strength, it was best to be a little more prepared. This room was more like a wide entry hall, devoid of personal effects.

"Did we take a wrong turn? The smell is too nice for our place."

[tobeliked]

"Needlessly, I might add," Remus was murmuring to himself, and was prepared to follow up with a half-hearted reprimand for James' academic laziness when the forward momentum ceased. He just stopped himself from catching up against Sirius' back, and leaned around him instead to peer past his shoulder. A year ago he would have been distracted by the proximity, but going into their final year he'd found himself quite adept at maintaining his focus. With all that was happening, both in the world at large and the more immediate one that was theirs, Remus felt that focus was imperative.

Taking a half step back, Remus looked behind them to the familiar hallway, red and gold and dark wood.

"We didn't," he stated and drew his wand idly from his sleeve.

"It doesn't look like any of the halls in the school, does it?" he murmured.

"I rather thought we'd seen them all."

[divinestsense]

With a backward glance to the room they'd left, Sirius reached a distracted hand to his hip, confirming his wand was still firmly within reach. "Couldn't have been a portkey," he murmured, knowing both of his friends were well enough acquainted with that rather dizzying mode of travel.

Leaning past Remus, he thrust an arm back across the threshold and then spent a moment staring in wonder at his own upturned hand. Like this, he could better feel the difference in temperature and air quality, Hogwarts perpetually damp and drafty while this new place was warm and dry.

"That's bloody brilliant," he said, and abruptly brushed past James and into the center of the long, golden room, peering eagerly down hallways as he went.

[prongsdefiant]

"It must be some kind of spell," James says, stepping back into the Hogwarts side and then into the hallway once more to see the difference for himself. It's not something he's ever seen before but it's got to be some kind of high-level Transfiguration. Something they don't teach at Hogwarts, anyway.

"Want to go see how far it goes? What's the worse that could happen, missing a few classes? I was going to skip anyway. It's no real loss."

[tobeliked]

Given the precious little time they had left at school, Remus would have balked at the idea of leaving off class if the thing before them hadn't been so compelling.

"We can't exactly be held at fault for pieces of the castle rearranging itself, can we?" he said mildly, canting an eyebrow at James and smiling just barely.

He breathed in deeply as he crossed the threshold to stand fully in the new, arid space. It smelled different.

"It's quite grand, isn't it?" he asked, taking strides just long enough to keep apace with James and catch himself up to Sirius a little more quickly. The hallways was impressive, not just in size but in the elegantly crafted wood molding on the walls. It was rather beautiful.

[divinestsense]

"Not skipping," Sirius trilled in a feminine, if rather vague voice, and pressed a hand to his chest in mock astonishment. "Not the Head Boy!"

His grin implied his consent if his eagerness hadn't already done so, and he slung a long arm across James' shoulders as if he went gadding about mysterious mansions every day of the week.

"I've still not sorted how you beat out this one for that honor," he added with a jab of his thumb Remus' way.

[prongsdefiant]

"What I have cannot be taught," James says airily. He's happy enough to be arm in arm with Sirius on some new adventure because the world has gotten dangerous of late and it's stupid to be caught unawares...this feels more like old times.

"When has anyone been able to figure out what Dumbledore is thinking? He probably gave it to me because I'm actually good at Quidditch, unlike the rest of you."

James doesn't think that Quidditch necessarily translates into skill at being Head Boy but he's as lost as anyone when it comes to the hows and whys of his appointment. "But if anyone asks, we were running down a rumor of dungbombs. They'll believe us since Moony's here."

[tobeliked]

"Is sport acumen a particularly integral trait required of being Head Boy? That would explain it, I suppose. Makes as much sense as anything else," Remus murmured, smiling.

His wand was still in hand but his trepidation had waned. He didn't know what the hell was going on, and that should have been cause for more concern, but it was- between his friends' spirits and the type of magic they'd stumbled upon- fun.

There was a strong gleam of natural light coming from off to their left. A window, Remus thought, would be helpful.

"...Prongs," he said, stopping and shifting direction.

"Padfoot- this way, I think."

[divinestsense]

"Yes, yes, no one ever questions the moral fortitude of young Master Lupin," Sirius said in a staunchly serious voice as he removed himself from James and bound forward again, long limbs moving him easily ahead of Remus. He spun in place as he walked, a single rotation to throw a cheeky wink Remus' way, and then all but launched himself at the sill of an exceptionally tall window.

"Well," he said as the others crowded in around him, "I'd think it's safe to say we're a long way from Hogwarts, mates." Beyond the beveled window panes lay a long and verdant expanse of finely-manicured lawn. "Long way from Scotland, too," he added, and didn't further clarify that, as far as his reckoning went, this didn't even look anything like England or Wales.

"Fuck me," he breathed, and abruptly gripped both Remus and James by the chins, pointing their eyes skyward, where, past a thin scuff of bright clouds, the entire bloody universe seemed to be spinning above them.

[prongsdefiant]

James almost made a sharp comment about whether or not Sirius truly wanted him to fuck him but his words died in his throat when he saw that they were honestly suspended in mid-air.

"D'you think it might just be an illusion? Some kind of charm on the windows to make us think we're seeing that?"

[tobeliked]

Remus felt his stomach drop, hand lifted to catch at Sirius' wrist to flick his hand away. It stopped, though, fingertips merely resting there as every thought was driven from his head.

"...God, I hope so," he breathed, throat slightly tight. If they were in fact gazing up at the infinite expanse of the universe, he'd need to have a good lie down.

"Does it-" he reached compulsively for the bottom of the window looking for a latch, for any way to slide it open. There was none. He turned sharply away from the window, eyes scanning the room.

"There must be a door," he said and started away.

If he looked at the sky again he wouldn't be able to look away.

[divinestsense]

Unlike his friends, Sirius was positively delighted by this latest revelation, illusion or not, and had opened his mouth to make a remark to that effect, or perhaps to point out that this place felt different—Not at all like Hogwarts or Diagon Alley, but rather the Muggle record store he was constantly dragging the other two into, or Kings Cross before you'd crossed onto 9 3/4, no underlying crackle of magic to explain a thing like a sky full of turning stars.

He might have said any of those things, but then Remus was off like a dog on a scent, and Sirius was compelled to follow after. He walked backwards away from James, arms thrown up in a shrug.

"There must be a door," he repeated, and spun on his heel to catch Remus up.

As it turned out, there was a door, and a rather large one at that, and once Sirius had jogged past Remus again, he pushed his way outside without hesitation and then stood at the top of the stone steps, hands on his hips, face turned toward the sky.

[prongsdefiant]

Normally James would have shoved past him but now he stopped, admiring the sky that seemed real and no trick of magic or illusion. If it was magic, it was better magic than he had even seen Dumbledore do.

"Merlin's pants," he said lowly, fascinated. "Where the hell are we? I've never seen anything like this before in my life."

Never mind that he was only seventeen and had quite a lot of life left to live.

[tobeliked]

"That... would be the question," Remus murmured in return, gaze locked upward as he took the steps slowly, descending to a rather well manicured patio.

"...Perhaps we're hallucinating," he suggested.