When Worlds Collide

Draco was far from happy when I told him who was coming to lunch the next day, but he agreed to help me break the news to Dirk. I was thankful to him for his acquiescence; I had sensed the brimming rivalry between these two ever since we had met in the locker bay, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was all about.

In any case, I was finishing up with my attempts to cook spaghetti--one of Dirk's and my personal favorites--in the kitchen when the front doorbell rang. Draco called out that he would get it, so I ladled out the rather edible-smelling pasta (if I may say so myself) onto three plates before coming out to join them.

The atmosphere in the front corridor was bordering on explosion. Dirk and Draco were holding a silent staring contest as I entered, wiping my hands dry on a dish towel. And believe me, the contest was anything but friendly. I could've sworn that Draco was ready to draw his wand on Dirk and hex him.

"Welcome, Dirk," I chirped. The two boys started and turned to stare at me. "Come in, both of you--the spaghetti's ready." As I walked back to the kitchen, I heard the two pairs of footsteps following me for a while before turning off for the dining room.

I sighed to myself as I loaded the plates of spaghetti onto a tray to carry to the dining room. What in the world was I supposed to do with these two?

Lunch was tense, to say the least. Dirk and Draco kept on sending each other death glares across the table. I had a feeling that if they started to talk to each other, all hell just might break loose. I sat at the head of the table, watching them and inwardly shaking my head at their bloody stupidity.

When everyone's plates were empty, Dirk stretched and broke the silence. "That was wonderful, Estella," he smiled at me. I swear I saw Draco growing redder and redder by the moment. "When did you learn to cook so well?"

"Off and on, from my mother," I replied, watching Draco begin to resemble an overripe tomato.

"Well, it was really good. By the way, what was it that you wanted to talk about?"

Draco went from bright red to pale in a matter of seconds. I was a bit taken aback myself; but while I was trying to find the right words, Draco came up with a fair enough summary of the situation.

"You're a wizard."

Oh, this should get interesting. Dirk ogled the blonde sitting across from him. "Pardon?"

Draco leaned back and crossed his arms across his chest. "You're a wizard," he repeated with a smirk, seemingly enjoying Dirk's confusion.

Dirk imitated Draco's position. "Is this some sort of joke?"

"Not at all, my good man, not at all. I speak nothing but the truth."

Dirk's chair scraped the floor as he stood. "I'm sorry to say, you have all the truth of a mental patient; and if that's why you wanted me here today, I have better things to do with my time."

"Dirk!" I snapped. "Sit down!"

"I'm sorry, Estella, but if your nutcase of a cousin--"

"I beg your pardon?!"

"--is going to waste my time telling me about some fictitious power I may have, I don't have to sit here and listen to it!"

"Dirk," my voice softened, "he's not joking."

Dirk stared at me. "What?"

I exhaled loudly. "You are a wizard."

"But magic doesn't exist!"

"I know--that's what I used to think, too. But it really does exist."

"Are you telling me that you actually believe what Devon is saying?!"

"If we're going to be friends for a while," Draco cut in, "I think some new introductions are in order." He extended a hand across the table. "The name's Malfoy--Draco Malfoy."

Dirk staggered backward, shock written all over his face. "You're WHO??"

"Yes, Dirk, he's a walking, talking, breathing character out of Harry Potter!" I shouted, rising from my chair at the same time. I was starting to get more than a little annoyed with the way things were turning out. "Calm down! You need to hear everything, and that's certainly not going to happen if you're trying to leave like a bat out of hell! Now, SIT!"

Dirk sat, still staring at Draco as if said person was a ghost. Not far off from the mark, actually. . . "I want proof," he mumbled.

Draco motioned to me. "You can do the honors, Estella."

I nodded, still standing, before raising my hand and pointing at Dirk's plate. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Dirk's plate hovered in the air for a moment before coming back to rest on the table. Dirk watched its progress before turning to me. "So, that was you, wasn't it? You made Gundersnach's pencil fly into the air?"

I plopped into my seat and stared at the table, slightly embarrassed at being found out so easily. "Yeah."

"And when did you find this out? That you can do magic, I mean."

"Shortly after Draco arrived."

Dirk eyed Draco. "He's not your cousin, then?"

"Of course not. I had to create an alias for him. Can you imagine the media rampage if someone found out who he was?"

"Well, sure. But I'd really like to know how the hell he came here in the first place."

"Which I will tell both of you," Draco said, "as soon as you two stop talking about me like I left the room."

Draco pushed his chair away from the table and leaned back to look at both of us. "I suppose I should start at the very beginning," he said. "I was born into a pureblood wizarding family--one of the richest, with their own ideas of how the wizarding world should be run. Although, seeing as both of you have read the books about our world, I guess you'd know what I'm talking about already? But I digress.

"As rich purebloods, my parents wholeheartedly agreed with the Dark Lord's teachings and were one of the first to sign up with his army. They expected me to follow in their footsteps--and I did. But I wasn't all that happy about it, especially when I was assigned the task of killing Dumbledore as part of my initiation. I don't like the idea of killing people, especially someone as powerful as our Headmaster. Of course, I had to make it look like I was trying to do it, or else I'd be dead before I could say 'Salazar Slytherin'. . . although maybe, after the way things turned out, I would've been better off that way.

"Since Estella already seems to know how my last attempt at Dumbledore's assassination failed miserably, I won't go over it again. However, suffice it to say that the Dark Lord wasn't pleased with me. Professor Snape wasn't supposed to reveal his double loyalties just then, and my inaction 'ruined' the Dark Lord's plans, as he reminded me with an hour long session of Cruciati. Just as I was feeling the beginnings of insanity taking hold, he stopped, saying that he had a better punishment in store for me.

"First, he summoned my mother. She had no idea what was going on, and I didn't either--my tortured brain had enough to do with staying conscious. The Dark Lord had us all, including the other Death Eaters, Apparate to Azkaban, where he led us directly to my father's cell. My father looked as if his wildest dreams had come true. . . until Voldemort summoned a dementor and ordered--ordered it to give my father a Dementor's Kiss."

Draco buried his face in his hands, and Dirk and I remained silent, too shocked to comfort him. Minutes passed before Draco, breathing heavily, looked up at us and continued his tale in a choked voice.

"Before the dementor took hold of him, my father asked the Dark Lord what he had done to merit such a punishment. The Dark Lord replied that my father's crime was siring such a traitorous, cowardly son as the one standing before him--at which point he had me brought forth--who failed his very first mission, a comparatively easy one at that. My mother was crying behind me, and I had to stand there while my father gave me this last betrayed look before--before it happened. And even that was infinitely better than the glazed look in his eyes after the dementor was through with him.

"Then my mother was dragged to her knees next to my father's limp body, wailing and crying for mercy. And my Aunt Bella--" Draco wiped away his tears, "--my Aunt Bella was instructed to torture my mother until 'she had learned her lesson.' And she did. Aunt Bella tortured her own youngest sister until my mother had stopped screaming and was staring at me with the same glazed look as my father. She was still breathing, but not for long, since Aunt Bella finished--finished her--finished her off--"

Draco broke down completely. He dropped his head into his arms on the table and sobbed loudly, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. With a swift glance toward Dirk, whose eyes were also damp, I got up from my seat and walked over to Draco's side. I dropped to my knees next to his chair and wrapped my arms around him until his sobs subsided, gradually fading away to soft hiccoughing. I traced a small circle in the small of his back with my fingers, as my mother used to do on the rare occasions when I cried in her arms.

When he finally calmed down enough to speak, he raised his head and gave me a faint smile. "Thanks," he said softly.

"Don't mention it," I replied as I returned to my seat. "If it's not too uncomfortable. . . what happened next?"

Draco inhaled deeply. "I was tortured. Again. Next to my parents' bodies, I was tortured by the Dark Lord. And then he had me taken away to the slums of London by two Death Eater escorts--but not before he officially had me disowned by my late parents, with him acting as their spokesman. I couldn't access the family estate or Gringotts' accounts, not even command one of our house-elves. I had to fend for myself--without magic, mind you, since the Ministry had a bounty on my head, and my wand was probably being traced. It was the worst six months of my life, believe me." He shuddered and fell silent.

"But that still doesn't explain how you got here," Dirk commented, leaning on the table.

"I'm getting there," Draco sounded annoyed at the interruption. "Anyway, on Christmas morning, I decided I'd had enough of living like a Muggle guttersnipe. I went to London Bridge, and I was just about to throw myself into the Thames River--"

Suddenly, the date dawned on me. On Christmas morning, I was trying to drown myself, too.

"--and just as I was about to jump, this black hole opened up in the water beneath me, and I fell in. I fell for what felt like hours, mostly in darkness, screaming my head off the whole time, until it opened up and I found myself here, in Estella's backyard."

Dirk leaned back in his chair, his eyes thoughtful. "I think I know what it was," he said. "A wormhole."

"A wormhole?" I was skeptical. "Do you really think so? I thought that was just a lot of science fiction speculation."

"Begging your pardon, it is not," Dirk sniffed. "Just because we don't know everything about it yet doesn't mean that it doesn't exist."

"What is a wormhole, anyway?" Draco asked, an eyebrow quirked.

"A wormhole is a portal between parallel universes," Dirk said, taking on the tone he used whenever he explained a new concept to me. "As Estella so kindly put it, much of what is known about wormholes is speculation worthy of science fiction writing; but there are a lot of scientists who are treating it as a force to be reckoned with. Technically speaking, when two parallel universes--or worlds, if you wish--collide, a wormhole through the barriers surrounding these worlds is temporarily formed by the impact of the collision; and presumably, a person should be able to travel between two worlds via the wormhole."

"Well, wormhole or not," Draco continued, "I found myself here with Estella standing over me. She looked so much like Potter with long hair and without glasses that I nearly ran for cover right there and then." He smiled at the memory. "Good thing I didn't think of hexing her. . . I know I'd be regretting it right now."

"Harry Potter? Without glasses?" Dirk suddenly burst out laughing, and I blushed when I realized what he was thinking of. "Estella, why don't you show Draco what you really look like?"

"Dirk. . ." I tried to stop him, but Dirk kept talking, much to my embarrassment.

"Estella doesn't have glasses because she has contacts--those little pieces of glass that fix your eyesight without glasses," Dirk was telling Draco. "She used to wear these black plastic glasses all the time, a lot like what they show in the Harry Potter movies nowadays. When the Harry Potter series first came out, a lot of our friends started teasing her for being a Harriet Potter; so, she stopped wearing the glasses and convinced her parents to get her contacts. Do you still have those old frames around here, Estella?"

"Yes," I answered, miffed. "I still wear them at home sometime--contacts can be such a pain if you wear them day and night." Truth be told, I had avoided wearing those particular glasses since Draco had come, mostly to avoid the evil eye Draco had given me whenever the subject of Harry Potter (the wizard) had come up. Now, I sighed resignedly and left the table for the nearest bathroom to undergo a mild cosmetic transformation.

When I came back a few minutes later, transformation complete, Draco nearly fell out of his chair in shock. Dirk was laughing even harder than before, and even I couldn't hold back a smile.

"What, Draco?" I teased. "A remarkable likeness?"

"Bloody unbelievable," he gasped. "You look exactly like Potter. Exactly. Merlin be damned, I probably would've hexed you on the spot if you were wearing those!"

I started to take the frames off, but Draco waved at me to stop. "Keep them on," he said. "You look better with glasses than without--more than I can say for Potter, at any rate; he looks messed up no matter what he wears."

WWC WWC WWC WWC WWC

The mood had lightened considerably after lunch, and we decided to take a little walk through the forest surrounding my house to stretch out our legs. Draco took the lead, exploring the various paths between the trees and bending over to examine the fallen leaves and branches visible through the melting snow, while Dirk and I fell behind in conversation.

"It's still strange," Dirk was saying. "Not that I don't believe him, but how did he end up here, out of all the millions of possible universes he could've ended up in? It's a very small chance indeed that he travel directly from his world to ours--the odds are, say, one in several hundred million."

"Worthy of HP fanfiction, don't you think?" I laughed when Dirk rolled his eyes; he wasn't overly fond of my hobby, as he had made clear countless times before. But I sobered quickly. "Really, I think there was a reason for Draco coming to this particular universe of ours."

Dirk looked at me questioningly. "And what would that be?"

I took a deep breath. "You remember what Draco said he was trying to do when the wormhole appeared?"

Dirk wrinkled his nose. "He was trying to kill himself, wasn't he? In the Thames? Disgustingly filthy way to die, if you ask me."

"He wasn't so clean and pretty when he came here, believe me," I returned. "Skinnier than a rail, and he looked worse than a tramp. . . but that's not the point. I--I was trying to drown myself in the pond on Christmas morning, maybe even at the same time Draco was trying to do it."

Dirk's jaw dropped, but I cut him off before he could say anything. "Maybe the wormhole was more--disposed, shall we say, to connect two worlds with similar circumstances. . . like Draco and I both trying to die at the same moment."

"Estella," Dirk's tone was accusatory. "You said you were fine after your parents died!"

"Well. . ." I kicked at a dead branch. "Not exactly. I was getting really depressed until Draco came around. . . he saved my life, actually." Just as much as I had saved his, to be honest, although I really hadn't realized it at the time.

"Why didn't you come and talk to me? God knows I didn't want you to be suffering by yourself. You should've--"

"The past is past, Dirk," I interrupted. "I could've done this, I should've done that. . . but then none of this would've happened in that case. You've said yourself about the role that probability plays in parallel universes and quantum mechanics. Draco probably would've succeeded in killing himself, if not going to another universe entirely. I never would've found out that we're both magical, and we wouldn't be walking together in this forest right now--who knows what else could happen in between?"

Dirk stopped walking, as did I, and stared deep into my eyes for several moments. Then, he turned away with a shrug. "I suppose you're right," he sighed. "Maybe this was all for the best. . ."

"Not the best, perhaps," I countered. "But we can't change it now, so what's the use of complaining?"

Dirk nodded grudgingly, then looked around us with a worried expression. "By the way, what happened to Draco?"

To my surprise, Draco was nowhere to be seen. He must have really gone ahead of us while we had been talking. "Don't worry, I'm sure he's somewhere around here," I started to say--but the words were barely out of my mouth before angry voices abruptly began a shouting match quite a ways ahead of us. Dirk and I glanced at each other meaningfully before breaking into a run in their direction.

What Draco didn't know--and what Dirk and I were worried about--was that the forest behind my house had always been the meeting place of high-school thugs and bullies who had nothing better to do on the weekends. My parents were annoyed by these unwanted trespassers, but we couldn't do anything about it as long as the hooligans didn't vandalize our property (which they didn't) or harm anyone else by their behavior (which they probably did, but we couldn't prove).

In any case, they enjoyed beating up unsuspecting victims and terrorizing young people in general, and they definitely weren't fond of strangers who happened across their meeting place. That was why I had such a nasty feeling about what Draco had gotten himself into, and I mentally kicked myself for letting him drift away from us without at least warning him first.

When Dirk and I reached a small clearing in the woods, my worst fears were realized. A tight circle of about a dozen burly thugs surrounded Draco, who was struggling to get away from the two teens pinning him by the arms. A thin stream of blood from his lower lip trickled down onto his chin; to say he looked scared was an understatement. The leader of the thugs, a brawny Hispanic boy named Rodriguez whom I had seen extorting lunch money from terrified little ones ever since middle school, was laughing and drawing his fist back for another punch--until Dirk and I forced our way through to the center of the circle.

"Well, who do we have here?" Rodriguez' heavy Mexican accent was laced with scorn. "Two know-it-alls, come to help their weak friend, eh? Wanna join us in some fun?"

"Leave him alone." My hands unconsciously balled into fists, and Rodriguez laughed again, as did some of his goons.

"Oh, is señorita gonna try to stop us?" he snickered. "I wonder what's she gonna do 'bout it? P'raps, read at us?"

"Get the hell off our property, Rodriguez," I retorted in Spanish. Thanks to my father's background, Spanish was my second fluent language. "Otherwise, I will call the cops. And that'd be after I beat the crap out of you."

"Go ahead and try, Bonavideo," Rodriguez snapped back, in Spanish as well. "You're outnumbered twelve to three. You're a wimp. This friend we have here is a wimp. And I'm not afraid of that hijo de puta you've brought with you, either."

Dirk and I both flushed at that insult; Dirk's Spanish was less advanced than mine, but even he could understand the translation of hijo de puta. But our indignation was cut off by the four thugs who broke out of the circle at a wave from Rodriguez and lumbered in our direction, arms flexing menacingly.

I waited until one of them was close enough before raising a hand and Stunning one of them. When he crumbled to the ground, I turned and Stunned the other that was coming in my direction. I trusted that Dirk would be able to take care of his two, and I was right. Pretty soon, they were both lying on the forest floor, groaning, while Dirk stood triumphantly over them. I sure was glad that Dirk was a master of both Judo and Karate.

Rodriguez was looking far from pleased--or confident. Having four of one's goons go down, and two for no apparent reason, would make anyone's ego take a fall. From behind Rodriguez, Draco gave me a small smile; of course, he knew what had knocked out two of those thugs.

"I would leave if I were you," I advised him in English. "And I can promise you worse if you come back here again. Now, get!"

Rodriguez snarled some incoherent words at me, then signaled for his followers to leave. The two teens who were holding Draco threw him to the ground before stomping off after their leader. As an afterthought, I sent a wordless hex at Rodriguez' behind; he yelped, grabbed at his jeans where the hex had struck him, and hurried away even faster than before. In their haste to leave, they forgot to take their fallen comrades with them; not that I was complaining--those four deserved to wake up with a sore neck, at the very least.

Next to me, Draco slowly got to his feet, glaring daggers at Rodriguez' retreating back still visible through the trees. "The bastard jumped me when I wasn't looking," he growled. "I was going to hex him, but then they grabbed me by the arms. . ." He drew his hand across his mouth and seemed surprised to find that he was bleeding.

"Here. . ." I pulled out a handkerchief from my back pocket and started dabbing at Draco's chin where the blood had left a red stain. In my peripheral vision, I saw Dirk cross his arms, looking displeased. Draco sent him a triumphant glance, and that was when I realized: they were jealous of each other--about me. Bloody prats.

I cleared my throat and pulled back abruptly. "Best leave before those thugs wake up," I opined. The boys jumped a bit before nodding and following me as I led the way back home.

"Did they hurt you?" I asked Draco as we wended our way through the forest.

"No, not much," Draco replied. He touched his jaw, then winced. "But I think I'm going to be a bit sore whenever I talk for the next few days."

"Well, Rodriguez shouldn't be coming back for a while," I said with a smirk. "I left him with a little present to remember me by, if he's smart enough to figure it out."

"What do you mean?" Dirk asked.

I didn't answer him, but turned to Draco instead. "Tell me, how long does it take for the Furnunculus Curse to wear off?"

"Without the counter-curse? It would take ages. Why--" Suddenly, comprehension dawned on Draco's face. "No. . ."

"You didn't. . ." Dirk murmured, sounding awed.

"But I did. Just before he left." I laughed. "Boy, is Rodriguez going to have an interesting time sitting down from now on. . . with that lovely patch of boils on his arse."