All rights belong to JK Rowling. This story is in no way intended as a challenge to her vast and terrifying powers.

Chapter One

A Robust Argument For The Existence Of Magic

Who knew the Village of the Damned would have a tea shop?

Puddifoot's had to be the most ridiculously twee tea shop in the UK. Fake flickering gaslight, pink walls, frilly pink and white tablecloths, glittery pink paper stars drifting near the ceiling...

The paper stars were a nice touch, actually. I couldn't see any strings.

I gave the twitchy server the best smile I could. At that point it probably wasn't a very good one. A morning in Crazytown will ruin anyone's mood. But I couldn't look grumpy enough for her to be trying to hide behind her tray. "Hello. How are you today?"

She squeaked at me from behind her tray. Everyone in this village acted as though I had a bit of baby-flesh stuck between my teeth.

"I'd like a pot of tea, please. I don't need cream or sugar with it. And a food menu, if you've got one."

She nodded behind her tray and scurried off to the kitchen. The young girl wore pastel green and blue robes. All the people I'd met here wore some sort of robe or cloak. Was it a local fashion, or was there a festival coming up?

I sat alone in Puddifoot's. The tiny place was empty except for me. Did no one else in Hogsmeade drink tea? When I'd first come into the village I'd wondered if it were a tourist trap. Stone buildings with shingled roofs, Victorian-looking shops with displays of what were obviously high-tech toys, locals dressed in weird period costumes... It all looked like one of those fake villages the British liked to build to fleece tourists such as myself out of our freshly exchanged money.

But people had eyed me up and down when I walked up to them the way cops eye a homeless guy in a rich neighborhood. Outside of this village the English and Scottish people I'd met had all found my Canadian accent interesting. Here they flinched when I spoke. I'd asked the server if she was having trouble getting a cell - Pardon me, mobile - call through or if it was just my phone. She'd looked absolutely petrified by the question.

Speaking of the server, she came back carrying my tea and staring at me like I was a mad dog. Bit by bit, I started to realize what this village was about.

Stay polite, Geoff. Stay polite. "So is this the off-season here?"

The girl's hands were shaking as she put the tea pot down. A pink tea pot, of course. "O-off season?"

Robes, obviously fake architecture, terrified of outsiders... Right!

"I'm sorry," I said. "Is this a commune of some sort?"

She squeaked again and ran back to the kitchen. "All right then." I looked around the empty tea shop again. I caught a glimpse of someone staring through the window, but they ducked as soon as they saw me looking their way.

"I'll just leave my money and go," I said loudly. Obviously I'd stumbled into some sort of religious commune. I put five Pounds on the table, thinking that it was probably too much.

I got up and grabbed my rucksack and umbrella. Time to get out of Hogsmeade before the locals went all Wicker Man on me. I was almost to the door when it opened and a man in a dark red cloak walked in.

"There you are," he said. He had a little stick in his right hand. The tip of the stick glowed, and little swirls of light trailed off the tip and pointed at me. "We were looking for you down at the train station."

"Oh good." Don't babble, don't babble. "I was just on my way there. I have an appointment. Many people are expecting me."

The man opened the cloak and put his stick away. He wore a perfectly ordinary brown sweater under the cloak, and didn't at all look like a murderous fanatic. Except for the cloak. He stuck out his hand for me to shake.

"Neville Longbottom," he said. "Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts."

I shook his hand politely. He had a very firm grip. "Doctor Geoffrey Hunter. Professor of History at the University of British Columbia. On very short sabbatical at the moment. Expected back really soon."

Actually I'd quit outright five months ago. But I really wanted the locals to think people would miss me if I vanished. I started trying to edge around the robed lunatic. If I could just get to the door...

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Longbottom, but I really have to go." Damn he was good at blocking. I couldn't manage to shuffle, edge, or step past him.

"Go? Oh I hope not, Doctor Hunter. I think you're just the Muggle we're looking for."

I set my rucksack down on the nearest table and pulled out a chair. "'Muggle'? Is that a local expression, Professor?"

He looked a bit embarrassed. "Of a sort. It's what wizards and witches call a non-magical per- "

I bolted for the kitchen door. Hitting it hard with my shoulder I ran though into the tiny kitchen. The server and an older woman both scream as I looked frantically for the back door.

There! I heard a man yell something as I jumped for the door. I grabbed the handle and -

Stopped.

I couldn't move. At. All. I heard the server shriek "Get him! Get the Muggle!" And then the kitchen door slammed.

I could breath, but even that felt constricted. I heard someone moving behind me but couldn't even move my eyes to look. I stared ahead at the door as whoever it was walked up to me. Trapped door knob? Some sort of electrical stun?

I'd quit five months ago. No colleagues to look for me.

I'd moved to Montreal for a few months, but hadn't kept my apartment when I'd decided to travel on. No landlord or neighbors to notice I was missing.

I'd spent three days in London. No one there had really noticed me. Just one more tourist.

I'd gone to Scotland on a whim. I hadn't even rented a hotel room in Dufftown before jumping on the first train out. I'd come to Hogsmeade because the name sounded interesting.

Jessi and I had broken up eight months ago. We hadn't spoken in six.

I had no family.

I was going to die. I was going to be murdered by high-tech neo-pagans.

And no one would care or notice.

Longbottom leaned in to my field of view. "I apologize," he said. He actually sounded like he meant it. "Doctor Hunter, it's obvious that Hogsmeade Village has not been welcoming. I am truly sorry for that. My people can be very wary around outsiders. But I promise that you won't be harmed here."

He stepped back out of the edge of my vision. "I'm about to release you. You can leave Hogsmeade if you wish. No one will stop you. But I ask that you stay and speak with me for a few minutes. At the very least so I can apologize while you're not petrified."

He said a word and waved the stick - Some sort of dark polished wood - in front of my face. My muscles released all at once and I stumbled, banging my hip against the handle. I spun around to face Longbottom. He stood a few metres away from me, at the other end of the tiny kitchen. He held his hands at his sides as he smiled at me. Longbottom looked relaxed in the same way my former Tai Ch'i master looked relaxed just before she kicked my ass. I didn't think I could get past him, and I wasn't about to grab that obviously-trapped doorknob again.

"Is - Is this a commune?"

"No, not at all. We don't practice any sort of communal ownership of property. We are - " He stopped and ran his hand through his already messy hair. "We are a community of people who share a special talent. We call ourselves wizards and witches."

Right. Not a commune. Just a bunch of neo-pagans with a bad attitude towards outsiders. "Well, I, I apologize for trespassing, Professor Longbottom. When I bought the train ticket at Dufftown the clerk didn't mention anything to me."

"The fact that you even saw that wicket is very interesting. Doctor, I'd like to introduce you to one of my colleagues from Hogwarts. Would you care for a pint?"

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIO

"We summoned yeh," said the huge man.

"Summoned?" And they were acting all crazy again. A pint of nicely spiced dark ale had taken some of the edge off, but now they were talking summoning...

"Yeah," said Rubeus Hagrid. Poor man had to be over eleven feet tall and nearly four across. How his heart hadn't failed yet I had no idea, but he looked fairly healthy under all that grey beard and hair. Longbottom and I had sat at a booth, while the bartender - Pubtender? Publican? - had brought Hagrid an oversized chair. He was obviously a regular. "Well, the Headmistress did. Really tricky bit o' magic." I watched as he downed half a pint in one swallow.

"As I said, we are a magical community." Professor Longbottom pulled his wand out from the inner pocket. "And Hogwarts is a school for magic. I teach Herbology, while Hagrid teaches Care of Magical Creatures."

How had I let him talk me into this? The customers in Hogshead pub seemed ordinary enough, aside from their clothes. I'd been startled by Hagrid obviously, but he was friendly enough man and it wasn't his fault he'd been born with severe acromegaly. And the beer was good. Butterbeer was an old-fashioned drink, similar to the Boston Flip Benjamin Franklin had been so fond of. At some point I had forgotten the people here were a bunch of religious nuts.

Longbottom swished the wand. "I've called Headmistress Grimward, but she's bit busy at the moment. School term starts soon, and we're short a teacher. So I'll have to demonstrate."

Oooh God. How was I going to get out of here? "That's all right, Professor. I don't need any demonstrations."

"Hagrid, are you done with your mug?"

The big man thunked his mug down on the table. "All yers," he said.

Tapping the mug with his wand, Longbottom looked me in the eyes. "Doctor, please name the first small item that comes to mind. Something with no moving parts, please. Transfiguration was never my strongest field."

"Fork." Door door door... No, there was no way I could get past Hagrid. Oooh God.

Longbottom stared at the mug. His wand shone with silver-blue light...

The mug shone with silver-blue light...

The fork shone with silver-blue light...

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIO

"Rock."

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIO

"Picture canvas."

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIO

"Beret."

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIO

"Drink."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. One should never transmute an object into anything to be be eaten or -"

"No. I need a drink."

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIO

Two drinks in Neville tried to explain the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. I didn't really hear much of the discussion, being distracted by the singing pint mugs. Another drink or two later Hagrid started in on the Muggle-repelling Charms used to keep ordinary people away from places like Hogwarts. Then he demonstrated Stupefy on a customer who'd kindly volunteered for the role by groping the waitress. That led to a round of drinks with the man's 'friends', who obviously didn't think too much of him. One round led to another and another led to Neville levitating me across the pub while Hagrid pounded out a beat on the table and a ring of wizards Morris danced around me...

It was a very robust argument for the existence of magic.