When Worlds Collide

Chapter 13: It Starts

Neville Longbottom had been dreading Potions class all day. He always did, really, but the prospect of being taught by someone with an unknown ability for being patronising was more than a little irksome. The fact that Brian Zabini was in Slytherin house while he had been a student of Hogwarts didn't give Neville any reassurance.

The only difference from the norm in the classroom, Neville noticed upon entering, was the lack of formidable presence of Professor Snape. That, and Blaise Zabini was slouching a little lower in his seat, as if he was under the impression this would make him unnoticeable.

Neville clutched his bag to his chest as he made his way to his seat - near a quiet corner at the back. He would have made it unperturbed if his path had not been interrupted with the sudden appearance of an oncoming student he hadn't seen soon enough to stop in time. The collision made Neville drop his bag, and several books spilled from out the top. The student with whom he'd collided - an unapologetic Slytherin, unsurprisingly - merely made his way to his desk with a smirk of amusement. Neville, embarrassed, crouched down and began to gather his books.

"Neville Longbottom, I can assume?"

The unfamiliar voice took him by surprise, and his resulting jump only served as further amusement for the Slytherins. Neville twisted around and looked up to see the unfamiliar face that undoubtedly belonged to their new Potions professor, Brian Zabini.

Neville didn't say a word - not for lack of trying, however; his mouth was doing what appeared to be an enactment of a croaking frog having an epileptic fit while under the silencio curse.

"You may take your seat now, Longbottom," Brian Zabini continued with a grim smile of sadistic amusement. "Unless, of course, you find the floor a more preferable vantage point. There is, I suppose, not so far to fall from there."

Neville scrambled to his desk, a pink tinge gracing his face. He caught sight of Seamus ahead of him, who shrugged apologetically. At least Brian Zabini was apparently not as prone to deducting Gryffindor House Points as Professor Snape was.

The class was so used to Neville's frequent blunders by now, that his moment of humiliation was short-lived - the Slytherins had turned back to face the front of the classroom, and Neville was no longer under many cruel amused eyes. Now he was able to observe quietly from his seat. That's why he liked to sit at the back - he could see all the other students and what they were doing. He liked it better that way. The Slytherins, Neville noticed, were generally quieter without the presence of Draco Malfoy among them. Blaise Zabini had his head tucked down giving great concentration to taking out his ink and parchment (although Neville suspected he'd have been like this anyway, simply because his brother was teaching the class), and Pansy Parkinson's nose seemed to have found it's place in its own business for a change. Without Draco to initiate a mockery in class, Pansy was a rather inactive boring person.

After taking out his pot of ink, a roll of parchment and his quill, Neville had the opportunity to study their new professor for the first time. Zabini didn't share the mono-coloured dress code that characterised Snape - he wasn't slathered in black from top to toe - but his attire was still dark. His outer robes were black, the back falling fluidly from his shoulders, moving like an ominous cape when he moved. A light grey jersey could be seen underneath this - its colour complimenting a shiny silver 'Z' at his left shoulder holding folds of robe fabric in an elegant twist. His hair wasn't dark enough to be termed black, Neville decided. It was closer to a dark brown, a shade or two darker than his eyes, which were now surveying the class in contemplation. From an objective viewpoint, Neville wasn't altogether surprised to see several of the girls - Slytherin, mostly - having a blatant partiality to this new professor. Blaise certainly wasn't looking appreciative of this.

"Obviously," Brian Zabini started (Professor Zabini now, Neville corrected himself), "I am your new Potions Teacher." The Slytherin girls were silent, hanging on to his every word. Professor Zabini was apparently a Slytherin-Lockhart. "Professor Snape may come in from time to time, but in practice, I will be supervising your learning in this field." His voice was a firm no-nonsense voice, despite his relative youth, Neville noticed. Unlike Snape's slow threatening tone, Professor Zabini's was rather clipped. Brian couldn't have graduated more than two or three years ago, but he knew his current position and was obviously confident in it.

"We're going to make this simple potion today-" he gestured his wand toward the board and the instructions appeared "-because I don't want to run into many complications, as may arise from a difficult concoction. Today I want to see how you interact as a class; which of you have strength and knowledge in potions..." his gaze wandered toward Neville, "...and which of you I should be careful of. At the end of the class, you will all each drink your potion - assuming it was made correctly. Of course, if it isn't, I'll be very disappointed."

Neville gulped slightly under the gaze, and looked to the board's instructions to see what they were making. Professor Zabini was right - it did look ridiculously simple. Although, it used some ingredients that Neville was sure the Ministry would find suspect, at best. He wondered why they were required to make this potion. Although Professor Zabini had maintained that it was so he could see class interactions, Neville was doubtful. After all, there were plenty of other easy potions that even he would have a hard time botching up. Not much of the rest of the class seemed to notice the odd potion choice - and most of the girls were too busy looking dreamily at Professor Zabini to have glanced at the board at all.

The result had pleasantly tasted rather like grape, Neville found. All considered, the day's lesson hadn't been entirely productive, aside from Neville having the pleasure of not making a terrible mistake in his concoction.

He fell in step beside Seamus after class as he was striding down the corridor, to ask him whether he'd thought it a strange class.

"Well, sure, I guess," Seamus admitted. "I mean, it was a rather silly potion that didn't seem to have a point. But hey, it's like he said, he just wanted to see what everyone was like. We'll probably get a decent potion tomorrow. I'm not really worried."

And within a new cradle of warm apathy, Neville found he wasn't worried either.

~<>~

"If I have to sit here for much longer my arse is going to fall off from gangrene," Tony said, frustrated, running a hand through her wax-messed blue hair, now seeming a darker hue under the only available light of roadside streetlights on the route to Auckland.

"Now you can't patronise us for 'complaining like children'," Trina pointed out, motioning to herself and the back seat passengers. "It's you who's driving this thing."

"I know, I know. It's just that Auckland moves further and further away each time I go there. The city thinks it's funny to sidestep up the country."

"Oh, yes, of course that's the reason..." Trina said, rolling her eyes, then looking out at the other cars on the relatively relaxed motorway. "We're coming into Auckland now - what are you complaining about?"

"Apart from the gangrene arse," Tony obliged, pausing a moment to check the rear-view mirror before changing to the inside lane and putting on more speed, "there's the small fact that Auckland's the size of a small country, so we've still got ages to go before we get to the Pt Chev flat."

"Do your butt exercises," Trina laughed. "And flex...2...3...4... relax...2...3...4... and flex...2...3...4..." As she spoke she could be seen to be subtly moving up and down in her seat, bringing undisguised bouts of laughter from several of the Hogwarts students behind them.

Tony laughed too, but responded, "How about not? What are some car games we could play instead?"

"My Dad likes I-Spy a lot," said Hermione. "We could play that."

"Okay," said Trina. "I spy with my little eye-"

"You mean the big hairy googly one you use to communicate with your own people," Tony interrupted.

"-something beginning with..." Trina continued, as if she hadn't heard, but her voice had increased its volume as if to drown out a buzzing pest, "...P!"

"Paint?" guessed Hermione, looking at the markings on the road zipping beneath them.

"Nope."

"Picture?" ventured Harry.

"Nope," said Trina, looking more and more delighted.

"Porcupine!" Ron said triumphantly, and Harry looked at him, perplexed.

"There's no porcupine!" Harry exclaimed.

"Well," Ron said helplessly, with a slight shrug. "I thought maybe she'd seen one..."

"Pain in the Arse," Draco stated grumpily, looking directly at Trina, his meaning obvious.

Trina looked genuinely surprised. "I'd thought that would be a hard one..."

"You do realise he was talking about you..." Tony said through her broad amused smile.

"Oh, in that case it doesn't count," Trina said after she'd shot Draco a glare. "Because I was talking about Tony."

"You can't do that!" protested Tony. "If it was right it was right!"

"Besides," added Harry, "that's not a fair one anyway, because it's an opinion, not the name of an object."

"It's true, it starts with 'P', and it was something I saw - unlike a porcupine," Trina listed. "Seems fair to me."

"No it's not!" shot back Ron, perhaps a little sore over the continued hassles poked at his porcupine attempt.

"But technically-"

"Technically nothing!" Ron said, on a roll now. "You have to choose something else!"

"Okay, okay," Trina said. "So I have another go?"

"No!" Tony said. "You wasted yours on a cheat."

"That wasn't-!"

"Harry, you go," Tony interrupted again.

"Uh," Harry started. "I spy with my little eye...something beginning with...uh...T."

"Tony!"

"Trina!"

"Tentacle!" (That was Ron)

The answers fired at Harry from all directions, each one met with a 'no'.

Apart from his guess of 'Pain in the Arse' (which everybody knew wasn't a serious guess - he'd just been making a rude statement that happened to match what Trina was talking about), Draco had been stubbornly unwilling to participate. Not that anyone found this particularly unfortunate - they were more than happy to play a fun game without the cumbersome burden of Sour Wet Blanket.

"Tower," Hermione said, and this time was answered with a 'yes'.

"But there's heaps of towers!" Ron protested. "How was I to know you'd pick that?"

"If there's heaps," Harry said, "you should have said it first, because it would be more likely that I'd see it, wouldn't it?"

Ron sulked.

"I meant that tower," Harry said, pointing a fair distance away to what was easily the tallest structure around. It looked like a high stone cylinder, but near the top, it widened into a broader cylinder, before narrowing again, this time to a fine toothpick point. The entire structure was lit in various colours, and the lights allowed them to see to the end of the point, it's tip slicing the sky.

"That," Tony said, more for Hermione's benefit than because anyone would be interested, "is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere."

"Really?" said Hermione, predictably. "Can we go inside?"

"Well, not now, obviously..." Tony trailed off.

"There are viewing areas inside it," Trina said, "and a really flash restaurant - dress-up-to-the-stars dress code - and casinos."

"I've only been in there once," Tony added. "The casinos, I mean. On each floor of them, there was a shiny spritzy-looking new car up for grabs. As you may have noticed," she said, gesturing around her own Nissan, "I didn't win one."

Hermione resumed the game with an "I spy with my little eye...", and so it went for perhaps the next hour, Draco not participating but to throw in the odd sarcastic comment, and Tony's imagined gangrene only getting worse.

It was a welcome relief when Tony pulled out of the motorway and they all soon found themselves in the suburb of Point Chevalier. Even more was the relief when they rolled to a stop outside a block of homes in a quiet side street.

"Uh, we're here," Trina said to Tony, who was still staring blankly ahead, idly scratching her forearm.

"I know," she replied. "Just basking in the knowledge I'm free to get out of the car now."

Trina's face was incredulous. "So...get out then."

The cool night air rushed into the car when Tony opened her door and stepped out, the others following suit. After the obligatory stretching and complaining of sore muscles, bodies were laden down with luggage to take inside the flat.

"At least they left it reasonably tidy," Trina surveyed the living room as they walked in and turned on the light.

"Sure," Tony said, grumpily, as she headed towards the kitchen, "for a Tasmanian Devil."

Trina chose not to reply, but instead abruptly dumped her bags to the floor, a little louder than she needed to.

"There isn't much in the cupboards," Tony reported loudly into the living room. "We'll have to get stuff tomorrow. I'll make a list now of what we need."

"Fine, you do that," Trina said, still perhaps a little more sharply than was required. "I'll make beds up...that's a point..." She trailed off slowly.

"What's a point?" Tony stuck her head around the edge of the kitchen to see Trina looking perplexed.

"How are we all gonna sleep? I mean, we have a double bed, a single, one pull-out, and two couches - distributed among three rooms. What are the arrangements gonna be?"

Ron and Draco were looking at each other rather nervously. Despite obviously having been able to put up with sharing a room in Taupo, neither seemed keen to repeat the process.

"No boys and girls together in the same room," Tony asserted. "We've at least got to be half-way decent."

"Well who's getting the double bed?" Trina queried. Looks were swapped around the room. Trina looked slyly at Tony and said conspiratorially, "you could share it with Draco."

The blonde in question raised one elegantly-shaped brow incredulously.

"I'd rather chew my own arm off," Tony muttered, as her head again disappeared into the kitchen to continue the list. "Spread - chocolate or honey?"

"Chocolate - Milky Way. So how will the double bed be taken up? It's hardly fair that only one person gets it, when so many people have to make do with dinky couches."

"Ok, well one thing we know," Tony said as she strode into the living room to face Trina, looking as though she was about to dispense a great piece of wisdom. "Boys do not share beds. Even if they're the best of friends. It's just not in their culture. It's like friends giving each other a random kiss on the cheek in a public place - girls can do it, but not guys."

"So..."

"So presumably, it'll be two girls who get the bed. And common sense says that'll be you and me."

The same blonde eyebrow rose again at that concept, and Tony looked at him unimpressed and added to him in a mocking monotone, "Yes, our secret is out. That is why I don't want to share a bed with you. I'm hot for Trina. We get up to ruderies all night- "

She was cut short by a sharp poke from Trina's elbow. "You'd better be careful about dishing that load of codswallop out," Trina was saying. "One day someone might take you seriously. It looks like some of these people already have."

Tony looked at the four English students to see Ron looking particularly petrified, Hermione and Harry looking vaguely uneasy, and Draco looking, as always, not entirely readable - perhaps with an element of shock, with a vague amusement.

"Then they've got fifty different kinds of issues," Tony said, and clearing her throat loudly, added as if giving a public address, "I like boys."

"Ok, that's us two organised," Trina said.

"You're not putting me on a couch," came a drawling voice, and nobody needed to turn to know from whom it was coming.

"That's hardly fair," Harry spoke up. "Why should you get the other bed?"

"It's not as if you deserve it," Ron added.

"Oh, come on," Hermione interjected. "Let's be diplomatic about this- "

"Only because you think dipl- di- because you think that will get you the bed!" Ron retorted.

"That's not true, Ron-!"

"Shut up!" Tony's voice cut through the argument.

Silence.

"Whoa, listen to that beautiful sound of...nothing."

"You just ruined it," Trina pointed out.

"Look, if we can't figure this out- What?" She'd felt a vice-like grip on her arm and turned to see Trina grasping it to stop her speech.

Trina had an enlightened expression as she said slowly, "Let him have the bed."

"What?!" said Ron incredulously, and Draco was looking victorious. "But-!"

"Be the better man," Trina interrupted to Ron. "Let Malfoy have the bed."

Ron huffed off to sit on his couch, grumbling, and Trina said something about putting the Gryffindor boys in the living room and Hermione on a mattress on of the floor of the girl's room, before heading off to get bedsheets.

Tony didn't miss the gleam in her eye, but decided not to ask what it was for.

"Hermione, come help make up his bed."

Draco found this comment intensely satisfying, but Hermione only scowled at him darkly and hesitated a moment before heading off to help Trina.

"So...I'll just leave my stuff here then?" Harry's voice cut tentatively through the quietened lounge, and he looked down to his bags by one of the couches.

"Yeah, you and Ron will sleep in here," Tony affirmed. "One of you on that couch, and the other on the fold-out bed...well, that will be a fold out bed...after we, y'know, fold it out."

"Right, obviously," Harry affirmed, and he took his bag with him into the bathroom, which Trina had pointed out to him on his way down the hall. Draco followed him and fidgeted impatiently in the hall for Harry to finish using the room.

It didn't take long for the beds to be all neatly ready for their occupants, and fortunately for everyone, Ron hadn't continued to make a big deal of Draco having the other bed. Harry meandered back into the living room from the hall, now comfortably wearing his bed-wear of boxers, and a t-shirt that was clearly several sizes too big for him. Another apparent thing that was noted as he put his bag next to the pull-out bed, was the new glasses framing his eyes.

"Ah, I was wondering if you wore those much," Tony said.

"Yeah, well," Harry said, absentmindedly. "I wouldn't wear the contacts to bed, obviously, but I still want to be able to see."

"Sight's over-rated," Tony mused as she spied Draco down the hall coming from the bathroom in his boxers and t-shirt, with a truly grumpy expression on his face. "It's not always an appreciated gift."

"You don't seem to mind, when Malfoy's in front of you," Ron's voice said bitterly, and to his annoyance, Tony didn't rise to the bait.

"Get over yourself," was all she said before heading down to the bathroom.

"Ok, Monsieur Mock-worthy Malfoy," Trina's voice leaked down the hall to the Gryffindor boys, and Harry could almost hear Draco's indignant brow-raise. "Your bed's finished, so get your unsociable arse into your little lair and let's all hope tomorrow's sun has the power to extract your wand that's so firmly planted...well, where the sun isn't."

Harry kept an ear out for Draco's retort, but was surprised to hear it was not forthcoming, even as Hermione and Trina were re-entering the living-room. Any notion that Draco was becoming less disagreeable was killed by the almighty bang that came from the door to Draco's room as he slammed it.

"Whoa," Tony said in awe as she emerged into the living-room in her extremely large t-shirt with a giant thumbprint on the back. Harry remembered it from the first night they'd all landed in this country. "What did the door ever do to him?"

"Probably wasn't shiny enough to show his reflection," Trina said, shrugging.

Tony rolled her eyes as she whispered something indecent, in frustrated fascination. She initially wondered if perhaps she shouldn't have said it, but in retrospect decided it didn't matter anyway, because it couldn't have been heard over the monstrous roar that happened next and threatened to flay them all.

"WHO IN HADES-?!!"

All noise stilled in the living-room as glances were swapped, before Tony muttered to Trina, "You're in trouble..."

Sure enough, Draco Malfoy came striding into the living-room, flicking his blonde hair harshly from his face as he glared at his audience. Tony thought he looked like the most vicious homicidal Backstreet Boy she'd ever seen, and directed a questioning look at Trina.

Trina couldn't refrain from grinning broadly, and when Draco saw it mirrored in Hermione's face he just about ruptured his own in rage.

"IT WAS YOUR IDEA, WASN'T IT?!!" Draco looked like he was about to lunge for Trina's throat.

"Oh, get over it," Trina responded. "It's really not a big problem."

"What's not?" Tony asked.

"We short-sheeted his bed."

Tony laughed, and Harry and Ron looked at each other in impressed delight as they imagined how Draco must have looked, when making this discovery.

This did nothing to settle him down.

"I ought to hex you all, right here!" Draco was yelling. "You low-down, good-for-nothing pieces of hippogriff dung! I should give you all boils to last a year!"

"Except you don't have your stick," Tony managed to get out through her mirth. "Look, we can fix the bed - since it's obvious you won't. Then you can have your sadistic little dreams in comfort."

If ever Draco was mourning the loss of his wand, surely it would have been now. His eyes were blazing, and Tony was sure that the only thing keeping him flying at Trina in rage was the fact he was outnumbered. That, and a miracle. His jaw was tightly clenched, and Tony could even make out the pulse in his neck.

He stepped back and motioned down the hall in mock graciousness. "So fix it."

Trina almost cheerfully began to walk down the hall to oblige, but was soon stopped by an alarmed Draco grabbing her arm and exclaiming, "Not you!"

Tony rolled her eyes and decided against retaliating against him, as she made her way to fix the bed - walking a little more slowly than perhaps was necessary.

It was going to be a long night, she could see. What other dramas were going to make life worse before they finally got to England?