Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of these characters they all belong to JK Rowling.
I'd like to thank my beta SweetStrawberryShortCake for helping with this.
What surprised Harry the most was that it was McGonagall who asked them to do it. Harry defeated Voldermort that past year and since the Slytherins had spent the majority of that year ruling over and flat out attacking everyone else. The students took it upon themselves to repay them and most of the adults looked the other way.
Nothing that any of them did was too horrible. The mostly called them names or threw insults, which was quite a bit tamer than the hexes that they had to put up with. Harry did not like it, but like everyone else he chose to ignore it. He stopped people from picking on the younger years though. There was no reason to pick on first years. Most of the second and third years were not there the prior year either because even their parents worried about their safety while Voldermort was around.
That's when Professor McGonagall got her great idea that the Slytherins should work with the other houses. The teachers for some unknown reason thought that if they worked together towards a common goal it forced them to all become friends. Snape was probably the only professor that knew what it really was: a punishment. He was gone, so he could not sneer at her and tell her what a horrible idea it was.
Harry, Ron and Hermione really weren't that far behind in their studies because of most of the students had to come back to repeat the previous year any. Hermione was relieved. It made it seem as though everything was the same since they were surrounded by the same people they had always been with. Harry tried to pretend that it had all just not happened. Or at least he did not talk about it and fought with those who tried to make him.
That was what caused Ginny and Harry to break up. It happened before they even started school that year. They fought too much in Harry's opinion and that was the last thing he really needed. She said that he did not care about her enough, and should talk to at least her about something. He could not take it anymore and decided it was best just not be with her. Ron was upset at Ginny for a while, not Harry. He understood why Harry made his decision. He tried to stay out of it all together, but things were tense at the Burrow for a while. Ginny was even then still not the best company.
The other reason for their break up, that Harry never even mentioned to her, was that she would at times take part in tormenting the Slytherins. At the Burrow it was just random remarks, but once they got back to Hogwarts, she did not just say them covertly under her breath anymore. The first time it happened, he realized how glad he was that he ended it. It would have been so much worse if he had to do it at school.
Ginny was in his transfiguration class the day that McGonagall decided to implement the new idea of hers. For the project McGonagall had them doing , she had them form four groups of six. There were only six Slytherins in the class to begin with. So naturally they tried to group together. That's when she split them in half. She sent the three seventh years to group with two Hufflepuffs and a Ravenclaw. Then sent the other three, which were the eighth years over to Harry's group.
Of course, the only Slytherins that cared enough about their education to return for their eighth year. And decided to continue Transfiguration were Blaise, Pansy and Draco. Harry, Ron and Hermione had yet to find the rest of their group anyway since most everyone was afraid of Harry's temper. It was a rather simple what they were supposed to do as a group. They would change parts of their faces to look like the other people in the group. It was very useful with the Aurors. That way, they would not look specifically like anyone, but realistic all the same.
The complicated part about it all, was that they had to concentrate on taking things from so many different people all at once. They said the incantation and nothing changed on any of their faces. Then they all fainted. No one else had attempted the spell yet, all of them lowered their wands shocked as Harry's group one by one shook themselves awake as they started to get up.
"What the fuck happened?" Draco was the first to speak shocking everyone. It was not just with what he said, but that other than whispered spells, he had not spoken to anyone since school had started. It was odd for them to hear him speak at all at that point.
"Did it blow up?" Hermione was next to come to her senses, pulling herself up to lean against their workstation. Though there was nothing on the table they were standing by. She looked at in confusion. No one said anything as the rest of them rubbed their sore limbs and heads. They took in the room around them, confusion coloring all of their faces before long. McGonagall could tell something was wrong by the way they were looking around obviously perplexed as to where they were. It seemed everyone was just waiting for that question to be asked. Instead Draco fainted again. Harry caught him before he hit the ground and gently laid him half on the floor and half in his lap.
"Baby, are you okay?" The students were dead silent in shock. Harry did not notice anything since he was too concerned with Draco. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked around the room once more before he let Harry help him up.
"I'm fine." Draco growled. "I was just hoping that if I fainted again I'd wake up and be in class." McGonagall was beside them trying to figure out the best way to approach the situation. She needed to question them but decided to get them by themselves first. It was obvious they were from a very different place than there and they had already said enough to have the halls gossiping about it for months.
"You six, come with me." She said quickly. "You need to get to the infirmary." They were all too stunned to even think about disobeying and followed her out the door. Harry took Draco's hand and would not let go, but Draco did not seem to think there was anything wrong with it. After they left there were whispers all around the room about what could have happen and why Harry and Draco were acting like that. Including a few that mentioned 'the real reason Harry broke up with Ginny.' Who had been sitting right there and was pissed that he did not even glance her way. A relationship with Malfoy was definitely one of those things he should have told her. Along with everything else he hid from her.
(Meanwhile… our wizards wake up where their counter parts came from.)
Draco opened his eyes and saw an unfamiliar ceiling. He closed them again and just hoped he had died or that maybe he was in a hospital. The surface that he was on was way to hard to be bed. There were voices around him, an adult he had never heard the voice of before asking questions. "Are you okay? What happened? Come on, Come on everyone help them up. Should we take you to the school nurse?" Then he felt a hand grab his arm and voice that he heard way too often from above him.
"Malfoy come on, get up. I know your awake the rest of us are." He allowed Harry to pull him to his feet before he dared to open his eyes again. When he did he saw that the room was too white and bright. He looked at Blaise and Pansy to see them squinting probably thinking the same thing.
"I don't think we need the nurse, Sir." Hermione said. "It's just a little hot in here and we must have inhaled too many of the chemicals." She gestured towards the blacktop table in front of her that had a lot of strange shaped glass jars full of different colored liquids on it.
"Maybe we should all get away from the fumes than." The teacher said. "Everyone go to the library while I clean the room up." Everyone got their things together and headed for the door. In that room they were no where near each other. There were plenty of the tables and only two students sat at each. Draco had been sharing one with Harry which was why he had helped him up. They all got Hermione's hint to not let anyone know what really happened. They located what they would assume to be their own bags as they were the closest ones to them. Hermione followed the other students to the library taking in her surroundings as she went. With the others right behind her.
Their group followed her as she walked to the back of the library and up a narrow staircase. Way in the back of the upstairs loft was a table and she made her way to it, grateful that it was vacant. They all sat down trying to figure out where they were and what to do.
"How'd you know this was here?" Ron asked looking around. It was an unusual place to just know about, none of them had ever been there.
"Ron we're still at Hogwarts." All the boys looked at her confused and Pansy nodded her head in agreement. "Look, we can't let anyone know that we're from some other universe. If we tell them the truth they will lock us up thinking we're crazy."
"Yea, muggles wouldn't believe in magic. Try convincing them of different planes." Harry mused.
"You mean we're muggles here?" Draco gasped then took in their attire. They were wearing regular school uniforms not robes. They still had black trousers looking down at Pansy he saw she was wearing a plaid skirt with Slytherin colors. In fact they all were in their own house colors. He then noticed he was also missing his wand.
"The library is in the same place and we still have our houses, so hopefully they're in the same place. It's just built different, everything's too bright." Pansy observed as she looked around in disgust.
"This is how all muggle schools look, actually this one is still a castle and has the medieval feel to it." Seeing the glares on the Slytherin faces she added. "though no where near the feel of Hogwarts."
"Fuck." Harry finally spoke. "Without magic there's no way we'll find a way back."
"We're going to have to trust that McGonagall will figure it out until then." Hermione calmly reasoned. "We have to pretend to be… well, ourselves who ever they are." She bit her lip nervously since she knew it would never work. Only her and Harry had ever been to the muggle world the rest of them did not even know how to turn on a light switch.
"I doubt that we've changed that much just because we aren't using magic. We should just be ourselves." Blaise said. "In fact, I'm sure our classmate are wondering why we're even speaking to you right now."
"That's one of the reasons I picked some place private." Hermione snapped. "But it's not necessarily true. Harry and Draco were partnered in class." Hermione pointed out.
"And how many times did Snape do that to them over the years." Blaise drawled. "They were probably being punished for fighting."
"That wasn't Snape in the classroom." Harry added. "A lot of things could be different. We need to figure out what our lives are like before we do something to obvious." Harry looked over at his two best friends and smiled weakly. "Like what if you two are dating other people? You should probably stop holding hands."
"But, if we are dating each other wouldn't it be weird if all of a sudden we quit?" Ron pouted. They had just started to date and he like to keep her close.
"That's what he's saying Weasley." Pansy snipped. "Okay, We'll all go back to our dorms and go through our things. Read your journals and go through your pictures. Try to figure out who you're close to here."
"What if we don't have any?" Ron glared at her.
"Then pray one of us writes enough about you to tell you." Pansy sighed and noticed the time on her watch. She'd never worn one before but the tan line on her arm suggested she never went with out it there. "Let's meet up here before dinner and discuss what we've found out about each other."