Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

&R&

It was rather a shame, Pidge thought, that she'd crashed the car.

It had already been in bad shape. Riddled with holes, covered with crater-sized dents, and crusted over with black mud, with a branch the size of a baseball bat impaling the trunk like a knife through soft cheese. Pidge wasn't any mechanic, but even she could tell the car was standing on its last legs…er, tires.

But getting lost in the Forbidden Forest didn't leave you a lot of options for traveling safely and quickly. Pidge was an expert on the subject herself, having read all the Harry Potter books.

Yeah, she knew where she was. It honestly wasn't hard to figure out, given the centaurs and Gawp and that tree with the haphazardly carved letters spelling 'Voldemort wuz here' and the smears of silver stuff that looked suspiciously like unicorn blood nearby. Pidge was, by nature, an extremely logical person. So she logically examined the situation, and when she was done, started cussing Retta out.

Retta was the whole reason she was in this mess. Sure, she was ecstatic to really visit Hogwarts, for God's sake, but there didn't really appear to be any easy way back home.

Pidge closed her eyes while she looked over the past few minutes again.

"Happy birthday, Pidge!" Everyone yelled at a safe distance away. After all, the six Monsters her friends had cautiously given her for the celebration were already down Pidge's throat, and she could feel the wonderful incoming insanity, like a train crash. Ah.

She frowned. Where was that dirtball Retta? Didn't she remember it was her birthday?

Speak of the devil…Retta sashayed up to the table they'd claimed in the cafeteria for the party before homeroom. She was grinning wildly, and Pidge could tell all hell was about to break loose.

"Guess what day it is," she chirped annoyingly, drawing the vowels out far longer than necessary.

Pidge didn't feel like answering. Instead, she leaned back to fully savor the sugar flowing through her veins.

Retta, annoyed, decided to channel her inner drama queen at the prospect of being ignored. She didn't like being ignored. "Pidge…" she whined.

Pidge sighed. "I know what day it is. Like I'd forget my own birthday. You don't give me enough credit, you really don't."

Retta was about to respond when she noticed the pleased expression on her friend's face and a pile of Monster cans drained to the last drop scattered on the table.

"You know," she said, gulping, "I'll make this quick. Well, I didn't get you a Monster-" "Aw." "-but I got you something better."

"What?" Pidge asked, bored. What could compare to a Monster?

Retta hauled her book bag onto the table top and fished out various items: her mp3 player, a Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix book, a peanut butter sandwich, and a black cat.

Puzzled, Pidge leaned forward. "What is all that crap?"

"This crap-" Retta grunted with the effort of restraining her cat, "-bad cat, bad cat, Winkie! This crap, as you so narrow-mindedly call it, is your birthday surprise!"

Uh oh, she had thought. Pidge probably should have quit at the word surprise. But curiosity was too powerful a motive.

Retta continued. "So, I was dabbling into a bit of black magic-"

"Okay, I can already see where this is going," Pidge sighed. "No. Just no."

"Would you let me finish a sentence?" Retta scrunched up her nose as she glared at Pidge a little, still distracted with her psycho cat. It was mewling frantically, scrambling to run away. Pidge really couldn't blame it. "So, I was reading online about magic spells…"

Retta then proceeded to tell Pidge about her entire search for the best birthday gift, her valiant quest through cyberspace to find the perfect spell for her. Pidge thought it a bit overdramatic, and was also a little disturbed that you could find black magic on the Internet. That meant she was also tuning out when Retta started setting up the necessary tools for the spell and explained about what it actually did. Pidge hoped it wasn't important.

"Yeah, yeah, we only have a few minutes before homeroom, hurry it up, would you?"

"Fine," Retta said, disgruntled. "You're the birthday girl."

She took the Harry Potter book out, and flipped to a random paragraph on page 333. Retta removed the sandwich from its bag, and a plastic knife as well. Placing it in the center of the table, she motioned a friend, Briana, over and handed the knife to her.

"What exactly am I supposed to do with this?" she asked, her interest piqued. "And what's the cat for?"

"Okay, all you have to do is cut the sandwich into the Deathly Hallows shape, alright? You know, with the triangle and the stick and the stone. You have to do it while I'm reading this paragraph and while Pidge holds the cat. It's for Pidge's birthday."

"What? Why do I have to hold a cat? And what's the sandwich for?" Pidge questioned.

Retta sighed, clearly bothered by all these annoying insignificant questions. "You hold the cat to channel the magic going through her, into you, because Winkie's my familiar. And that's a sacrificial sandwich. It has to die."

"It's not alive."

"Not important. Let's get started…here's Winkie, Pidge, hold her tight, that's good. No, don't cut off her air circulation, she needs to be alive during the rite. Ready? Great."

They must have looked strange: Retta, standing solemnly like a preacher, with the book. Briana, carving death symbols into a sandwich oozing peanut butter all over the place. And Pidge, holding the hissing cat as far away from her as possible, wondering if this torture would ever end.

It was a few seconds later, when Retta's eyes started glowing and her own hair stood on end, that she started to question Retta's methods.

Yelling above the eerie cackling in the background, she said, "Where did you get that spell?"

"Why, Wikipedia of course," Retta replied innocently, her luminous eyes still focused on some imaginary point ahead of her. Pidge could've sworn she saw a malicious grin on her friend's face. Scratch that, it was definitely there.

And then Pidge popped out of existence.

And so here she was, surveying the wreckage before her with apathy. She'd panicked in the woods, racing around in confusion while simultaneously noting the similarities between this world and the one she had once read about with much excitement.

When Pidge had come up with enough evidence, something clicked. Halting in a dark grove of trees, she made the connection rapidly and for a moment stared around in slack-jawed shock. Am I…? Is this…? Okay, this is pretty freakin' awesome, she had to admit to herself. But I'm never telling Retta that. She's already got an ego the size of the Grand Canyon.

Calming down slightly, Pidge had glanced around. Great. Just great. All that surrounded her was tree after tree after tree, the same jaded green for as far as she could see. It was about early afternoon as well, a time difference of a few hours, judging by the sunlight shimmering through the branches above. And now she was lost. Wonderful.

The blessing had come on four wheels. The car had showed up, ambling along a crude path snorting gas fumes like a wild animal. Pidge supposed that by now, it was. Of course, it was still a car, and due to…past experiences, Pidge knew how to hotwire a car. The only problem was using it, since she didn't even know to drive.

Pidge had decided there was no time like the present to learn.

…Which had probably lead to the smoking heap of scrap metal it became, when Pidge crashed it into a low stone fence, after barreling out of the trees at a dangerous speed. Hagrid's hut was in the distance, about seventy five yards away, and Hogwarts was easily visible in all its magnificence.

"Huh," she said thoughtfully, sprawled on the ground from throwing herself out of the car at the last possible minute. "This could be interesting."

With that, Pidge grinned mischievously. "Retta…I don't know whether to strangle you or hug you…"

&R&

Dearest Pidge,

Did you like it? It's gonna go on-it's your very own multi-chapter fic, and you can PM me to tell me want kind of havoc you want to wreak next. I have a few other plans, but you get to decide the main crap that happens. I'll probably update once a month or so. Happy 15th birthday…

For all of you who don't know: Pidge's birthday is today, and to celebrate, I have decided to write her her very own multi-chaptered fic, involving her, me, and a few other guests. So yes, the Pidge in the story is real, as is Retta, because she's…uh…me. Briana's here too! Wish Pidge a happy birthday on her real Fanfiction account: she goes as TCML1. PM the crap out of her! It annoys her! I'll warn you, there might be a few inside jokes. Like Monster, for instance. A warning: DON'T EVER LET PIDGE NEAR MONSTER. I really advertise you out there, Pidge.

One last note to Pidge: well, you only turn fifteen once. Might as well make it something special, don't ya think? Talk to you later.

Love and hate for breaking my poor unsuspecting pencils,

~Retta