Anonymous Review Replies!

Guest: Aw, so glad you liked! :D I *love* bringing in plot twists and when people tell me they found them exciting it makes me very happy indeed, thanks! :D

Ariskari: Thank you! I do love my descriptions, they can be a challenge to make interesting, but I always try to imitate authors like Terry Pratchett, who can capture people and objects so vividly it's a joy to read about them!

StorySkimmer101: Ahahaha, not gonna lie, the dropping of the sophisticated persona had me grinning a bit, made for a very cool review to read! Thanks for three of them! I admit I'm a fan of both the Aziraphale/Crowley as well the Destiel ship, but in the works I *write*, I mostly like to keep it the way the show/book keeps it - as in, dropping bits here and there that can be shipping fodder, but can also be ignored if one isn't in to it. I'm an adventure/humour writer at heart :3 Hope you like the final installment, thanks a lot for reviewing! :D

Chapter 15: It's A Kind Of Magic...

Somewhere in a bookshop, about 15 miles west of the warehouse scene (and approx. 2 hours earlier...)

"We're using a potion...from a children's book series?"

The question 'Are you freakin' kidding me?' was written so plainly on Dean's face it could have been used as a teleprompter.

"Actually," Aziraphale piped up and raised a finger, "There's point in arguing that Harry Potter is not only a children's book series-"

"I don't care! It's a book! They're supposed to be fictional!" Dean looked at his brother as if asking for support here, since apparently everyone else had lost it ever since Crowley had proposed his plan. Currently his angel pal had already begun to dig out the books and look for the relevant scenes.

"Oh, good heavens, no," Aziraphale replied calmly while thumbing through the Chamber of Secrets, "Every bit of lore she used in there is very real." He stopped to glance at both brothers over the rim of the book and raised an eye brow. "You do know that Rowling is a prophet, right?"

Judging by the matching WTF-looks the Winchesters gave him, they didn't. Crowley, leaning in the doorway, snorted.

"Duh. Where else would she have gotten the descriptions of all the supernatural events from? Honestly."

Sam stared at him. "Then...then does that mean that Harry Potter...?"

Crowley shrugged. "Is also real. Saved the world in 1998. Of course, you might not have noticed it in Cowboyland."

Dean exchanged a glance with Sam for a moment. Then:

"Okay, just what is going on on your crazy little island when-?!"

"Well, in your defence, it's not that obvious that the books are real," Aziraphale interrupted Dean's protests in a soothing tone, "You do have to have some magical ability to get all the spells and potions in there to work." Turning to Sam, he added. "Could you give me that jar of Fluxweed off that shelf? My, having a tall fellow around like you is handy..."

Sam frowned, his face that of a man who hadn't even really heard what was being said to him, but was mentally wrestling with a much more difficult problem. "But this doesn't make any sense," he said, handing the ingredient over, and Dean nodded emphatically.

"Thank you. I mean, first of all, if there really was a school for little British wizard freaks-"

"I mean, doesn't Polyjuice Potion take weeks to make?" Sam frowned. "Hermione brewed it in that haunted toilet for ages."

And Dean looked at his younger brother like he had just committed fratricide.

"Excuse me, what?"

"I needed an outlet in between the studying, okay? And besides, they're written really well..." Sam muttered, arms crossed and distinctly not looking at his older sibling.

"Okay. Whatever. My little brother isn't content with simply being a geek, no, he has to read about little magical ones, too." Dean ran a hand over his face and let himself collapse back into one of the comfy chairs. "I swear I don't know where I went wrong..."

Crowley cleared his throat. "Ahem. Yes. State of your family affairs aside, the beauty of being an occult creature is that you're allowed to cut corners," he said smoothly, dipping a finger into the bowl Aziraphale had prepared the ingredients in and then proceeded to lick it. "Yes, I think it's almost ready. Just missing the boomslang snake skin."

"I really hope that's not coming from you," Sam said, throwing Crowley a doubtful look, which the demon returned with a deadpan.

"Oh har-de-har-har. No, since we need a second angel for this whole plan to work anyway, Aziraphale contacted his foster kid again. He should have it with him and be here right about n-"

And then Crowley was interrupted by the familiar sound of a wingbeat, and a second later Castiel was already standing inside the shop, holding a glass jar and looking just slightly confused.

"Aziraphale?" he asked with a frown. "Why are we making Polyjuice Potion? I thought Harry's mission was over."

"Oh, come on-!"

Crowley ignored Dean's exclamation and stepped in smoothly. "It's not for Potter, it's for us," he said. "We're going to win against Hastur and Alastair the human way – meaning, by cheating our arses off."

"Not cheating, Crowley," Aziraphale corrected calmly, taking the jar from Castiel and adding it to the worryingly bubbling mixture in the makeshift 'cauldron' that was actually just a sorry teapot, "Tactical subterfuge in our fight against demonic wiles, remember? It's all perfectly in order." He smiled kindly at Castiel.

The younger angel frowned, not looking pariticularly convinced. "A...plan of switched identities?" he asked.

"Where they'll hopefully spectacularly fail to exploit our respective weaknesses, yes," Crowley replied smugly. "The magic of that potion even works to conceal our auras. That should give us a chance to get both you and Aziraphale close to Hastur so you can try a double exorcism when he least expects it."

Castiel still looked a bit lost, casting a glance at Dean for help, but the hunter could only throw up his hands and shrugged.

"Don't ask me, I was lost the minute this gig started to turn into Dungeons and Dragons in here."

"Me and Aziraphale...masquerading as two of you," Castiel was obviously trying to work out the idea behind the plan. "But then who is going to be-?"

Crowley shrugged. "Well, since Aziraphale is most likely to take the most severe damage, I'll be him. Plus, I'll be able to at least show them some wings to make it look convincing."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Alright. In that case, I'll be you."

"What?" Sam protested. "No fair, I wanted to be Crowley!"

"Tough luck. Shotgun rules, Sammy."

"Oh come on, you wouldn't even be able to appreciate the threadcount this guy wears-"

"Don't talk back to your older brother. You take the one with the dorky fashion sense, it suits you." Dean jerked a thumb at Aziraphale.

"I can hear you, you know?" the blonde angel snapped, sounding slightly peeved, while his demon companion was obviously caught between snickering and preening. Castiel mostly frowned.

"I don't understand. Why does nobody want my body?"

Which, of course, had Dean in a coughing fit and Crowley in stitches.

"It's...it would be a bit...weird, you know?" Sam gave Castiel an apologetic expression. It didn't seem to help much in explaining.

"Right," Crowley said, stepping in and then gesturing to Dean and then to Castiel. "You take him. It's not like either of you really could pull off...this," he said, vaguely indicating his own body with a swipe of his hand, "but your kid brother may have less of a chance of botching it. Then Aziraphale can be your elk of a sibling."

"What? Why him and not me?!" Dean protested, but Sam merely blinked.

"Wait. Your name is Crowley...and you just called me an elk."

"Huh? Yeah. So?" the demon asked.

"...nothing," the younger hunter said, now with the air of a man who seemed to have realized that there were some battles you just had no chance of winning, ever.

Dean snorted. "Fine, Sammy can be you. The most you ever seem to do is stand around and make bitchy comments, he should be able to mimic that perfectly."

"Hey!"

"Hey!"

This time, the protests from both Winchester and demon came in unison. Aziraphale tried to calm everyone down with some general soothing gestures.

"Alright, alright. Now that everyone is sorted out-"

"Wait," Dean said, "Are we?" he asked, before his face briefly screwed up in the universal grimace of those performing mental arithmetic. "You said...if Sam is going to be yellow eyes, and the demon is going to be Aziraphale, and Aziraphale is Sam, that means-" and then he broke off, briefly looking like a deer in the headlights, right as Castiel said, completely serious,

"Yes. I will take your body, Dean."

"Dude!" the hunter grunted, very aware of the rising giggles in the background, "Just...just stop phrasing it that way, okay?"

"Why?" Castiel asked. "It is true that we shall have each other," he said, looking faintly pleased at the notion, while Dean's expression was just daring anyone else to make a comment (and his unhelpful younger brother's shoulders were of course trembling like a miniature earthquake).

xxx

About half an hour later, after some final preparations had been sorted out ('What? No. No way am I drinking something with someone's hair in it, Sam, this is nuts') all five of their little group were standing around the tea kettle with the strangely bubbling liquid inside, all of them holding a cup where a strand or lock of hair of their respective targets had been dissolved in. Each drink had turned into a different colour afterwards. Sam's was currently a steamy green and generally looking sort of radioactive, and the younger hunter was staring at it with all the enthusiasm of a man facing a firing squad.

"Why...why is mine glowing?"

"It could be because Crowley is a demon," Aziraphale said with a slight grimace. "To be honest, Polyjuice potion is only really meant to be used to turn humans into other humans, we don't really know how it will react to supernatural beings."

"Brilliant," Sam commented with an unhappy expression. "I'll probably end up as a salamander."

"Bottoms up, kid, me and your brother have angel hair in ours and now it sparkles," Crowley commented dryly. "It's fair to say I never wanted to swallow a piece of the angel less than this," he muttered as an aside, to which Dean cleared his throat audibly, and then thrust out his cup.

"Right. Are we drinking this or not?"

They all exchanged a glance. The cup Castiel was holding contained the most drinkable-looking liquid, a smooth rich golden tone, the one that held Sam's hair was a deep, slightly foaming red, the mugs that had been enriched with angel pieces were, yes, sparkling like a Pride parade, and of course nobody really wanted to get too close to Sam's cup with its startlingly ever more poisonous-looking liquid, all of them perhaps afraid that it would at some point try to climb out of its cup.

"Thanks, guys," Sam said dryly.

"Okay then, here goes nothing," Dean said, raising his own drink. "One, two..."

They all drank in unison. For a second, nothing seemed to happen, but then all of them started gasping, doubling over (or, in one case, started running to the toilet with an absolutely panicked expression). Sam went down with a strangled cry, ending up on his hands and knees on the dusty floor, Castiel groaned and barely managed to keep himself upright against the doorframe, Dean was bracing himself against the desk while trying not to keel over because it felt like his skin was melting, and Aziraphale was lying sideways on the couch, his arms hugging his chest tightly while his face was screwed up in the grimace of pain they all shared.

Clothes tore and bones cracked, Crowley fell down with a cut short gasp before ever making it to the rest room because one of his legs was suddenly longer than the other, hair made an absolutely weird noise where it changed colour and turned into blonde curls, Sam looked for one moment madder than ever, because one eye of his was still normal while the other had already turned bright yellow, Castiel nearly lost his balance because his chest abruptly expanded (and then Crowley gave a very distinct despairing moan, because in his case, it was his belly that had expanded and his fine shirt had promptly lost three buttons as it did).

In the end, the changing process had barely lasted a minute, but when it was over, it was safe to say that no one of their group...looked very intimidating any more. Aziraphale (who had turned into Sam) stood slightly sheepish in a shirt and a vest that had simply given up and torn over muscular shoulders and then ridden up, leaving his toned belly ridiculously exposed, and also leaving Dean with the impression that this person that now looked like his younger brother now also looked like Sam the Stripper Librarian and wasn't that an image he had never wanted burnt into his brain.

Of course, he himself looked fairly silly, he supposed, the clothes he had been wearing hanging off Castiel's smaller frame as if someone had tried to dress a scare crow in the flanel store. The angel himself, on the other hand, now wearing Dean's body, looked fairly constricted.

"Dean?" he managed, voice hoarse. "With your body, these pants are now somewhat tight."

"Cas," Dean tried, almost swallowing his tongue because he now of course spoke with Castiel's voice, "Don't...don't talk about anything. Concerning my body. Okay?"

Cas looked down at his new form and frowned.

"Why? I thought it was a nice body."

"Argh," Dean commented.

He even found it hard to look the angel, who was now wearing his face, but still dressed in Castiel's preferred brand of crossover between office casual and wandering hobo. Only now everything fit very tightly, and really, Dean wasn't even in his own body, so he really didn't want to feel that way, especially not when he was looking at himself of all people and -

"Sam?" croaked Dean in Castiel's voice. "I think this was our most terrible plan ever."

"You notice that now?," his younger brother replied, at the same time managing to use Crowley's body to walk into a door. "Ow! I can't see with these eyes. Help."

Dean briefly contemplated to hang himself with Castiel's trenchcoat belt.

"Everyone else is fine?" he asked, desperately.

"What? Yeah, yeah," Crowley, wearing Aziraphale's body commented with a wave. The demon and the angel seemed already to have recovered, which Dean supposed was probably due to them being used to occasionally switching bodies anyway. Right now they were busy fixing their torn clothes and magicking them into the appropriate costume for the role they were portraying. There only seemed to be a brief scuffle because Crowley apparently kept changing the tartan patterns and brown tweed pants the angel tried to dress him in, attempting to replace them with blacks and reds.

"Will you stop doing that, Crowley!"

"But I'm a demon! We need style!"

"No, you don't. I'm wearing these new-fangled blue jeans trousers and they're the most uncomfortable thing I've had in my life, and that includes our stay in revolutionary France, so you can at least-"

Well, that was Sam's voice, and it was whining. At least that was a bit of normalcy he could cling to, Dean supposed (even if Sam had never quite had that British accent). He turned to Cas.

"Hey. Can you fix our clothes, too?"

"Oh," Castiel blinked. "Yes." He waived a hand, and Dean's clothes began to shift around his body, becoming a somewhat better fitting pair of dress pants and a shirt, with a familiar brown trenchcoat then settling over them. A loose blue tie materializing around his neck was the final touch, and Dean thought Castiel even let see a little smile as he finished. "There. That looks right."

"Uh, thanks," Dean said, awkwardly attempting to smile back with a mouth that was not his own. "Can you help Sam as well?"

"Of course," Castiel nodded, repeating the gesture. Sam flailed a bit as his now oversized clothes shrunk and became the shapely cut black suit and tie combo, at the same time as Castiel's own attire changed into Dean's.

"Wow. Huh." Sam glanced down at himself. "As soon as I stop seeing double, I'm sure that'll actually look really good, thanks." He held up a book in front of his face and peered at it like someone in serious need of a pair of glasses. "I think I'll need some time to get usssed to these eyess – and the tongue," he added pointedly, glowering a bit at Crowley.

The demon in the angel's body shrugged. "You're missing the shades, boy," he said, at the same time snapping his fingers to produce a small spark of hellfire. As a result, a pair of black sunglasses appeared right on top of Sam's nose. The younger hunter frowned.

"Yeah, Crowley, I can't actually see in the dark."

"Oh, fine," the demon sighed, waving a hand to turn the lenses a few shades lighter. "It seems like the potion really doesn't transfer even the most rudimentary of powers."

Sam moved across the shop gingerly. "Your pupils are weird. This field of vision is funny."

"Your field of vision is funny," Crowley informed him tartly.

"We should go," Castiel said, "Polyjuice potion lasts only for an hour. We need to head down to the warehouse."

"Right," Dean nodded, preparing to leave, Crowley and Sam also trailing behind him. The demon turned around when it became apparent that Aziraphale was the only one lagging behind, calling out briefly

"Angel! You coming?"

"Sure, sure, one moment, this is marvellous, I can finally reach the uppermost shelves-"

The angel's enthusiasm was only slightly dampened, when on his way out, he hit his head promptly against the doorframe.

xxx

(Approx. Two hours later, starting right where last chapter left off...)

"- in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis!"

Beneath the hands of both "Sam" and "Dean", Alastair screamed and tried to escape his vessel by becoming a cloud of black smoke, but Castiel in Dean's body growled an 'Oh, no, you don't', reached right into the poisonous cloud, and then dispelled it with a gesture that let the smoke explode into all directions with a sound like an inhuman scream. "There," he said. "Go to hell...that is, oh wait, now you can't."

Sam in Crowley's body looked at his brother who still looked like Castiel.

"Dude, I think Cas is trying to be in character and give cool one-liners as you."

Dean was currently carefully not looking at himself.

"...I know."

"And he's really, really, bad at it."

" I know."

"Are you going to tell him?"

"...no," Dean said and Sam smiled.

"Very well. That's done," Aziraphale said, dusting his hands off on Sam's trousers. "And just in case any one should be listening," he added, his voice just subtly rising as he drew himself up and somehow suddenly looked even taller than Sam as his human self ever had. "I'll have you know that this place is in my care as the Principality of this continent," he spoke, his voice even a bit otherworldly now, deep and carrying, and even if was still Sam's face, hazel eyes had now definitely turned blue and searing - and for a moment, Dean even wondered if he could see the outline of wings behind his younger brother, just briefly feel the true age and power of this book-selling angel that yet seemed older than anyone bar Gabriel and Lucifer, "...and I will not tolerate anyone harming a hair on any soul within my jurisdiction."

There was a bit of silence, all of them just slightly awed. Aziraphale crossed his arms.

"'Obsolete' he called me! Honestly!"

"Yeah, I have a feeling they won't be doing that again," Crowley said, walking over to his angel and attempting a soothing rub on Sam's upper arm. Turning to the actual Sam, he added,

"By the way, at the beginning I'd have said you were in character as me, but then...'You're going to pay for this'? Really?"

"It was a bit of a stressful situation," Sam said, giving Crowley one of his better bitchfaces, which, frankly, in the demon's body worked just as well. "And anyway, I managed the hissing, didn't I?"

"Eh, I give it a 6.5."

"Oh, come on. And besides, we only had like one short car ride here to get into character," Sam complained. "Dean and Castiel at least knew each other." In truth, Sam thought, Castiel's perfomance had even been a little bit touching. The angel was notoriously bad at acting, so Sam knew that the fierce protectiveness Castiel-as-Dean had shown as 'Sam' had been hurt,had been genuine.

"Yeah, how long until this Freaky Friday show ends, anyway?" Dean asked at that. "I mean, nought for nothin', Cas, but I'd rather have my own meatsuit back if you don't mind."

"Oh, actually, it should be just about-" Aziraphale said, and that was as far as he came, because then they all gasped in unison again, and another series of very interesting events happened. Crowley's clothes tore as Sam shot back to his full height and width, while the demon himself somehow managed to make Aziraphale's clothes look even less fashionable now that they were loose and ill-fittingly hanging off his smaller frame, while the Principality looked mostly a bit lost in pants that were far too long for his legs now. Sam just looked extremely constricted.

"...now," the blonde angel finished.

Then, the entire group just made to hustle out of the warehouse as quickly as possible, because the light shows of not one, but two exorcisms would have been sure to attract the police, and right now nobody wanted to explain what exactly two men and three man-shaped beings were doing half-dressed with two dead bodies in a warehouse.

xxx

The following dawn rose bright and early, which was quite the contrast to a certain pair of brothers and their supernatural friends. The rest of the evening had been spent in a pub (that Crowley had convinced to stay open considerably longer than its terrified owner had obviously planned) where Dean discovered that one of the more pleasant differences in between Europe and the US was that here, you could actually get unlimited alcohol at a flat rate. ("Y...you knooow, your cunnery ishn't half. Half. Thingamajig. Bad. Tha's righ." "Dean, maybe we should go." "Nnooooo, the nigh's jus gettin stahted, human, don be such a...such a...spoily thing...fish. Yeah." "Crowley, you aren't helping." )

In one of the more interesting points during last night's debates, the question had been raised as to why, if all angels, even fallen ones, had white wings, Castiel appeared to have black ones, which Aziraphale first explained rather sweetly with 'Well, when Castiel was created, it had already been rather late. The Lord wanted to call it a day and retire, but there was still one little wave, who wanted to be an angel so badly and wanted to be one now, that...you see, God's son had just been born a few days ago, and this wavelength of celestial intent was now very intent on not missing another single one of them," the blonde angel had reminisced fondly, while Castiel next to him was wearing an expression as if he kind of hoped to drown in his own pint glass. None of the others seemed to notice. "And so," Aziraphale continued, "He made an exception – He created an angel just as the sun set, instead of waiting for the next dawn. And there you have Castiel – wings as black as the night sky he saw on his first moment alive, and made guardian of the day of thunder, because a thunderstorm he brought with him as he beat those wings for the first time."

("Tha' last one's a lie," Crowley had said. "Ah showed him tha' movie, Budderfly Whotsit, an' he just keeps adding tha' storm thingy now.")

This rather sweet explanation (which had left especially Dean looking slightly nauseous...) was then followed with several stories of how Castiel had managed to get his wings shut in doors repeatedly, had once tried to paint them white after being teased about them, and, in one memorable instance, had ended up completely tangled in celestial fly catchers. This seemed to be of much greater entertainment for the hunters, even it it meant that the angel in question declared at one point that he now really felt like in a smiting mood, and therefore would leave them to go face Raphael again, because at this point that seemed like the less painful experience. (But then, Aziraphale smiling at him and saying that if he needed help, he could always rely on family, had let him leave with something that almost looked like a smile.)

And so, in the late hours of the next morning, it was now only the two hunters, one demon and one angel left, standing in front of the book store they had eventually collectively crashed in last night, even Aziraphale and Crowley too drunk to remember how to sober up again. This meant that out of four people, Sam was now the only one without a massive headache, which he felt vaguely smug about. The weather had cleared up now, one of the few genuinely sunny winter days about to begin and London was already busily rushing around them, a city completely oblivious to having once again just narrowely escaped utter obliteration (but then again, London, being London, was of course used to that by now).

"Right," Dean finally said, reaching out a hand. Crowley seemed startled for a moment, but then took it. "You...take care of..." Dean gave a hand wave to indicate a general area that could have been the city or perhaps the entire island in general. "...this, okay?"

"Don't worry. We will," Aziraphale replied in Crowley's stead, shaking both Dean and Sam's hands in turn. "Otherwise, there's Adam to help out. The other antichrist."

"He's currently going to college," Crowley added helpfully.

"Man, how come other vessels of Satan get to go to college?" Sam grumbled as he also shook the demon's hand, but Dean shrugged.

"Things obviously work different here, Sammy."

"Yeah, you can say that again..."

"Don't take it to heart," Aziraphale said soothingly, once again patting Sam on the head and then nodding at Dean, who regarded him a bit more warily. "Call us if you ever need help at home."

"And then we'll think of maybe leaving London and going to bat country, yeah," Crowley added with a quirk to his lips. "Let's get back inside, angel, it's way too early for any wiling. Despite proverbs, evil actually does want to sleep now. See you around, kids," the demon yawned, turning to head back into the bookshop without even waiting to see whether his angel friend would follow. Aziraphale managed an apologetic shrug. "He actually does sleep, you know. It's sort of his hobby, I think. You get home safe."

"Will do," Sam said, as both brothers were already climbing back into the Impala, waving at the angel one last time before closing the door.

Dean pulled out into the traffic, heading north for the airport. He threw Sam a look. "People call us Cas' pets already, you don't have to let them pat you on the head as well."

Sam stuck his tongue out. "You're just jealous."

And Dean couldn't suppress a smile. He had no idea what it was about this particular hunt, but somehow, this brief stint in England now let him feel almost hopeful about the future again, about the angelic war, and, most importantly, about things between him and Sam. For now, though...

He glanced at his brother. "Okay. Ready to return to America?"

Sam met his gaze with wide, earnest eyes. "SO ready to return to America."

And so, not soon after, in two different places but with four people having stood together to save the world (or at least London today), two bottles of beer above the hood of a '67 Impala and two glasses of Château Lafite in the backroom of an old dusty bookshop somewhere in Soho clinked in unison.

And then, of course, Black Sabbath started belting out Bohemian Rhapsody because not a single one of them had remembered to fix the Impala's cassette player.

Fin

YAY! First multi-chapter crossover fanfic finished! :D Hope you liked, had fun, revelled in the silliness, and if you read, please review! (Or maybe put me on alert just because I'm considering uploading a Sherlock crackfic sometime soon, in case anyone of you is in need of more insanity :p). Cheers!