Harry Potter and the Twisted Game Part 4 (Patreon)

Hermione pulled her attention away from where Willow was checking her new outfit out in the mirror that Sirius had conjured and looked at Harry. "This isn't going to work."

Harry looked up from the jacket that he was going to move a defensive enchantment to and looked at Hermione. "What's not going to work?"

"We're talking about going into a dungeon filled with monsters. This isn't like sneaking around and looking for the stone when we were kids, we're planning on fighting actual magic users that want to kill us," Hermione complained, ignoring the look of confusion that everyone else was giving her.

"That's why we're building gear," Harry argued, not wanting to admit that they'd been dropped into the world, not when he finally had a family that cared about him but knowing she had a point and being unwilling to risk their lives by being deadweight. He just didn't know how to bring things up.

"I'm not a hero, you grabbed a magic sword and you killed a thousand year old basilisk when you were twelve," Hermione replied then took a breath and let it out slowly. "I can't do that."

"Thousand year old basilisk?" Remus asked.

"Are you feeling alright?" Lily asked as she reached over and put the back of her hand on Hermione's forehead.

"Not really," Hermione admitted. "I don't remember being Hermione Potter, I don't remember learning to fight. I certainly don't recall enough spells I can do wandlessly to make me think walking into a dungeon filled with monsters is a good idea."

Harry opened his mouth to argue or possibly try to spin some idiotic story to keep his parents from throwing him out then shut it when Sirius shook his head.

"Just tell her," Sirius suggested, knowing they were past the point where hiding secrets was a good idea.

"What do you remember?" Lily asked Hermione, curious if someone had tampered with her daughter's memories or replaced her.

Dawn shivered as the room spun, twisted and turned green for a second. 'What the fuck?'

Hermione turned and looked at Lily. "Up until this morning, I was Hermione Granger, Harry's friend rather than his sister. We finished our fourth year at Hogwarts, spent three days at home and then found ourselves here with no idea what was going on."

"Hogwarts? Did James put you up to this?" Lily asked almost hopefully as she glanced between Hermione, Harry and Sirius, mostly because if it was a joke, she wouldn't have to worry about her daughter's missing memories, just how she was going to make James suffer for a horrible joke.

Sirius shook his head. "Not so much, he's crazy, not stupid or at least I'm assuming this version isn't completely suicidal."

Lily studied her friend's face and realized he was actually serious. "No, you were acting weird at breakfast and Harry kept looking at Dawn like he was surprised she was walking around naked. What's the last thing you remember before you ended up here?"

"I was trying to figure out how to remove my mother's portrait from the entryway," Sirius replied, figuring there wasn't a point in hiding things.

"Might I suggest fire," Lily suggested, thinking about the one and only time she'd ended up at the Black Estate for dinner in her dreams.

"I thought about it, Dumbledore needed a place for the Order to meet and I didn't want to have to recast all of the wards," Sirius admitted. "How do you know about my family?"

Willow stared at the man with her father's face, wondering how she hadn't noticed. 'Mom is going to freak.'

"I used to have dreams of another life, of another world. The other Sirius was rather vocal about his family," Lily explained.

"Used to?" Sirius asked warily, noticing her brief hesitation.

"They stopped on Halloween when she died," Lily explained. "What happened to Peter?"

"He sold you out to Voldemort, I failed to kill him and ended up in Azkaban for twelve years until I saw a newspaper article about the rat and escaped so I could protect Harry and finish the job I got framed for," Sirius admitted.

Remus frowned slightly as he thought about his friend being a traitor. "In this world he died a hero saving a group of children from inquisitors when we were in school. Based on their stories, I'm going to assume Voldemort tortured him into insanity in the other world."

Sirius considered the idea and decided that it made more sense than his friend turning on them because he got scared or at least enough sense that he wasn't going to argue the point and it was certainly easier to stomach. "Makes as much sense as anything."

Lily decided to worry about Peter another time and focused on Harry. "What is the last thing you remember?"

"I went to sleep at the Dursleys and woke up here," Harry replied.

"Why the hell were you anywhere near my sister?" Lily asked warily, thinking of the spiteful bitch her sister had turned into in her dreams, mostly because she hadn't had magic in the other world.

Dawn pulled her attention away from the strange magic she could feel bleeding into the room and focused on her mother. "What's wrong with aunt Tuna?"

Lily turned to look at Dawn. "The version of Petuna in my dreams wasn't particularly nice, nothing like your actual aunt…" she trailed off as she felt a pulse of magic wrap around Dawn, Willow and Xander for a second before vanishing. "What was that?"

Dawn blinked a couple of times as she went from being Dawn Marie Potter to Dawn Marie Summers, younger sister to the Slayer then back to Dawn Marie Potter with memories of another sister, different parents and a weird town. "Do hellmouths exist?"

"Hellmouth?" Hermione asked, not familiar with the term and not liking the images her mind was conjuring, namely of a gapping tunnel into a fiery hell.

"Only in Sunnydale," Xander replied absently as Dawn and Hermione's features shifted slightly, changing to look a touch more like the Dawn from Sunnydale.

"Halloween?" Willow asked, wanting to make sure they were on the same page. "How does a computer geek dressing up like me for Halloween give me her memories?"

"Ethan cast a spell," Xander replied, glad that he had reasonable parents unlike his alternate.

Lily glanced between Dawn, Willow and Xander then glanced between Harry, Hermione and Sirius. "You're telling me that we have three people that picked up extra memories and three people that lost their memories and picked up a different life?"

"Five," Annette cut in. "Taylor and I ended up with extra memories from a tinker hitting our other selves with a mad science device."

Lily turned to look at Annette. "When was this?"

"This morning," Annette replied. "I was trying to figure out the right time to mention it."

"Magitech or mad science?" Willow asked thoughtfully.

"Mad science," Annette replied. "As far as I know the other world didn't have magic, just parahumans which are basically people with one or two non-magical spell-like abilities."

"Could they have stayed hidden?" Remus asked.

Annette shook her head. "Considering the Endbringers and parahumans, I think the magic users would have come out of the woodwork."

"Endbringers?" Sirius asked.

Taylor glanced at her mother then looked at Sirius. "Yeah, you're not from Earth Bet if you don't know what those are. They're basically monsters that destroy cities every three to four months."

"I've never heard of them either." Xander frowned as he thought about Amy's mother. "There was magic in Sunnydale."

"Not to mention vampires," Willow grumbled, thinking about Jesse and all of the vampires that Buffy had to deal with. 'Jewish or hedonistic pagan? I'm reasonably sure the gods here exist, not so much back home considering the vampire problem. At least I don't have to listen to my other parents complain about proper behavior or community standards. They'd have heart attacks if they saw me during the festival, to hell with them.'

Hermione turned to look at Willow. "What's the problem with vampires?"

Willow opened her mouth to reply then closed it when she realized that the Sunnydale vampires were different from the local version. "The vampires in Sunnydale are corpses that demons animate."

Hermione shook her head. "I'm fairly sure that's not how vampires work in the wizarding world."

"It's not," Sirius stated, having met more than a couple of vampires over the years. "You just give them a blood pop and they're fine."

"Blood pop?" Xander asked.

"It's basically a lollipop that conjures blood," Sirius explained.

Willow frowned as she thought about what a blood lollipop would taste like. "You're lucky, I don't think that would have stopped them from eating people."

"It should be 1997, what year was it for everyone else?" Dawn asked, trying to sort everything in her mind and figure out what to do with her memories.

"2010," Taylor offered.

Hermione shook her head. "It was 1995."

"That means we have memories from multiple worlds, any idea how we're supposed to figure out what happened?" Dawn asked, wondering if there was a way to send her mother a message because she didn't want her family to think that she'd just vanished.

Xander glanced at Taylor. "No idea, Taylor and Annette got sent here via mad science and we got dropped here with a spell. It's possible something broke the barrier between dimensions and made it easier for everyone else or maybe we're just lucky."

"I blame Leet," Taylor said, only half joking.

"Mad scientist?" Dawn asked Taylor.

Taylor nodded. "His inventions are always doing weird things or exploding."

"Seems reasonable," Dawn replied as she turned to look at Harry, "at least compared to going to sleep and waking up elsewhere."

"Story of my life," Harry muttered.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked as she turned her head to look at Harry.

"I wouldn't call my life normal, I spent close to ten years in the cupboard under the stairs so my cousin could have a second bedroom for his toys," Harry explained.

"In a cupboard, under the stairs?" Lily demanded, not noticing the electricity crackling over her hands as she thought about the other version of her sister being allowed near children.

"Expanded space?" Dawn asked hopefully.

"No," Harry complained. "I got used to the spiders and my cousin stomping on the stairs to wake me up."

"I'm still surprised you didn't poison them," Sirius muttered.

"I was trying to be a decent human being, mostly because they weren't. Besides, they made sure everyone in the neighborhood knew I was troubled," Harry admitted.

"You can always come back in six or seven years after you've left and cut their breaklines once you're not a suspect," Dawn suggested.

Lily gave Dawn a look, mostly because she'd said it first. "I'm surprised they thought they could get away with it."

"Remus never checked in and Sirius was in prison. I tried telling my teachers a couple of times but they either didn't believe me or they acted like they did then they'd forget about the incident after a couple of days. Looking back at it, someone was probably memory charming them or threatening them. Eventually I just sort of gave up," Harry admitted.

Dawn turned to look at Hermione. "And you didn't stab or curse them?"

"That was before I met him and most of the problems stopped after the twins ripped the bars off his window and rescued him," Hermione replied, knowing how bad that sounded and not carrying, mostly because Harry needed people to understand and support him. 'Maybe someone will actually hold them accountable if we get back.'

Harry gestured towards Sirius. "I'm pretty sure that had more to do with me neglecting to inform the Dursleys that my deranged godfather was actually innocent of the murder charges he was accused of."

"Probably for the best that I didn't find out about most of the crap until later, I wasn't exactly stable when I first escaped," Sirius admitted.

"You're stable?" Lily asked, a touch of amusement creeping into her voice despite the topic, mostly because if she didn't laugh at something she was going to snap and she couldn't reach the people she was actually pissed at.

"I've spent the last two years on the run or hiding and my best friends were dead or gone, I wasn't in a good place," Sirius paused when Willow stepped forward and hugged him. "What was that for?"

"You sounded like you needed a hug, you'll always be my favorite father," Willow told him.

"Aren't I your only…" Sirius trailed off as he realized she probably had memories of another father. "Thanks," he said, not sure what else to say.

"Which house did you end up in?" Lily asked Hermione, trying to change the subject.

"We're both in Gryffindor," Hermione replied with a smile, glad that she hadn't ended up in Ravenclaw.

"Not Ravenclaw?" Lily asked, thinking of her bookshelves.

Hermione shook her head. "I'm smart, I don't need to prove it."

Harry raised his eyebrows but decided not to make an issue out of something that was true now, even if it hadn't been when she'd started school. "She's also brave, she was more worried about getting expelled than dying horribly on some of our adventures."

Hermione gave Harry a look.

"Like the basilisk?" Remus asked.

Harry shook his head. "She was actually petrified for most of that. I was thinking about our hunt for the philosopher's stone."

"Ron was being frustrating," Hermione argued, finding the entire thing a bit crazy now that she was older.

"Did you find it?" Willow asked excitedly.

"I found it," Harry admitted, thinking about the large gemstone he'd pulled out of the mirror of Erised. "I even held it in my hands for a couple of minutes before I got knocked out by a crazy teacher and the headmaster reclaimed the stone. What's the world like?" Harry asked, wanting to give Lily a chance to calm down before he got to the Chamber of Secrets and the rest of his adventures.

Lily considered pushing for details then decided it didn't matter, she'd have time to ask later and making sure he knew how the world they were in worked was more important. "We're basically stuck in a monster filled world with Victorian age magitech."

"Think steampunk," Willow suggested.

"Or magic punk," Xander added with a grin.

"The major change from what you're used to is that life is cheap, the nobles can challenge people to duels and basically get away with things they shouldn't because of money or magic. Unless you're wealthy or powerful, you don't really matter in the grand scheme of things or at least the laws are unfair to draconian," Lily explained.

"In other words, just like home, only we can kill the idiots here," Sirius mused, thinking about the ministry's corruption back home. 'They never should have banned dueling as a means to settle disputes.'

"Basically," Lily admitted, thinking about the crap her dream self had dealt with in the war. "There's less corruption, if only around London. Mostly because tossing money at things eventually annoys a mage or a noble. On the downside, slavery is annoyingly common and legal which means don't accept any contracts without talking to an adult you trust and don't wander off with strangers."

"Why wouldn't they ban it?" Hermione asked, not sure why any reasonable society would allow slavery.

"It has to do with the dungeons, there wouldn't be a reason to bring people out if you couldn't profit off it or at least that's the general opinion most of the nobles have," Remus explained.

"Lovely," Hermione grumbled. "How does the Inquisition fit in?"

"They're basically cultists that get power from demons or a demonic entity that hates magic. We're not sure where they're actually getting their magic, just that it's tainted and they sacrifice people and animals to acquire their power," Lily explained. "Which means they can do some nasty things and they're suspiciously good at getting people to see the worst in people and getting them to do stupid things."

"Where are they based?" Hermione asked.

"They took over part of Rome and have bases scattered around, they mostly stay underground because there are some old and powerful magic users that don't have a problem killing them," Lily explained as she pulled a map out of her inventory and spread it out on the table.

"Which do they think they can run around here without issues?" Hermione asked as she looked at the map, a touch surprised by the strange collection of old and modern names for countries and cities.

Remus sighed. "Because they're fanatics. I'm fairly sure the only reason the king agreed to let them wander around is to get them out in the open so they could be picked off and dealt with."

"Long live King Giles," Lily said cheerfully.

Willow blinked as she connected the dots. "Rupert Giles, librarian? Rupert Giles, King of the British Isles? Do you think there's a connection?" she asked Xander.

"No idea," Xander replied with a shrug. "I've never seen the king or even a painting of him."

"Not to mention, he might look different," Dawn pointed out.

"Is there anything I should know about London?" Taylor asked, not as familiar with the local version of London as she'd like to be.

Lily grinned as she thought about her city. "Most of the locals actually like the mages, of course, we go out of our way to keep everything running and deal with the worst of the mages so it's not too surprising."

"What about the rule about normal people taking weapons into the mage quarter?" Hermione asked, wondering if they actually needed it.

"Nothing says people can't take weapons out and you can normally get a pass just by asking the captain, it's mostly there to deal with idiots," Lily explained.

"That's better than I was expecting," Hermione admitted.

"What's with the festival?" Harry asked.

"It's part of the solstice festival, it's a celebration of the longest day of the year and a chance to let your hair down and party for the mundanes while the mages give away food and sell a bunch of magical trinkets. If you're a mundane, nudity outside of private residences is technically illegal for most of the year, subject to a fine at the discretion of the warlocks in charge of enforcing things. Generally the more annoying they're being or the uglier they are, the more of a fine they'll get. During the festival, everyone is allowed to run around without clothes and you normally get a discount during the festival if you're nude," Lily explained.

Remus grinned. "It goes back to ancient times and a fey noble's curse or at least that's the story."

"How come mages can run around naked?" Hermione asked, a bit annoyed at how unfair things seemed.

Lily pointed at the map of Ireland. "Some of the older mages have pacts with ancient creatures that require a flexible stance on clothing and some of the fey have no tolerance for mortal laws and enough magic to level half the city. Not to mention the cursed gear that comes out of the dungeon is more than a little errotic."

"Cursed gear?" Harry asked.

"They're basically extremely powerful errotic outfits with tentacles that you can't remove without getting their curses broken," Xander explained.

"Ah," Harry mused, getting a better idea why the government decided it wasn't worth enforcing a dress code.

"Speaking of kinky fun, can we move this back to the tower?" Dawn asked. "We could use a snack and a break."

Lily glanced between Harry and Hermione then focused on Dawn. "Since we're not going to hit the dungeon until I've made sure the people with missing memories know the basics and we've checked for curses and drugs, we might as well head back to the tower."

"We should probably grab the family pensieve, we can trade memories," Dawn suggested, figuring that would go a long way toward getting everyone caught up.

"Good idea," Lily agreed as she picked her map up and stuck it back in her inventory.