Chapter Text
The Scourge had come to Los Angeles, wanting to purge the city of demon-human hybrids. They'd been trying to fight them, and then he'd jumped, there had been painful impact with the metal death-device, and then bright light combined with the most excruciating burning sensation... Doyle was fairly certain that he was supposed to be dead.
Which in no way explained to him what he was doing sprawled on a polished wooden floor in front of a fireplace, staring at an older woman with her hair in a bun, clad in a dark green gown and an old man that could have doubled for a gaudier Gandalf, both of them apparently frozen in the act of sipping tea from china cups with a pattern of red lions marching around the edges.
"This is unexpected, Minerva," the Gandalf-like man murmured, sipping at his tea.
Her tea was placed firmly on a tray, and she looked at him, eyes narrowing at Doyle. With a disapproving Scottish acent, she commented, "I was certain that I had wards up to prevent people from just flooing into my parlor."
"How did I end up back in the Isles?" Doyle murmured, blinking in confusion. He thought that he'd been in a boat, but still... The hold of a boat should not translate to some Scottswoman's parlor. Shaking his head in a futile effort to make sense out of his situation, Doyle offered a small smile to the woman, "I do apologize for the interruption, though I'm
not sure that it was any doing of mine at all."
"Back in the..." Minerva frowned, giving him the distractedly thoughtful expression that most likely meant that she was trying to see if he was someone that she should remember. "Where were you before, young man?"
Deciding that neither Minerva or the man who couldn't be Gandalf seemed to be inclined to attack him, Doyle very slowly sat up, waiting to see if it would be safe to try standing up. Considering that he was still certain he should be dead, he wasn't going to take standing up for granted. "The last thing I was certain of, I was in the hold of a boat docked on the edge of Los Angeles, in the United States. I seem to have missed the explanation of how that changed."
"I'm particularly impressed by the white color the fire turned just before you came through," the old man mused. "Most unlike the normal green."
"I came through white fire instead of green..." Doyle blinked, wondering just how hard he'd hit his head when ending up on the woman's floor. "Perhaps you could be telling me a general idea of where I am? Beyond the well-polished parlor of Minerva, that is."
"And here I was under the impression that such strange things only happened around Harry Potter," Minerva muttered, shaking her head. With a small sigh, she made a few motions with a small, pointed stick that somehow produced another teacup, and then poured a cup. "Do you take cream or sugar in your tea?"
"One sugar, thank you," Doyle murmured, slowly rising to his feet. He felt dizzy, and dark spots danced in his vision, causing him to ask, "Might I be sitting down?"
With a gesture from Minerva's wand, one of the plaid upholstered chairs scooted forward. "Of course."
"Perhaps you'd like a lemon drop?" the old man offered, holding out a small bowl filled with pale yellow candies.
"Not everyone is enamored of those candies, Albus. I have some lemons if he'd care for something to flavor his tea," Minerva reproved.
Sipping at his tea, Doyle tried to figure out what had happened. His mind kept returning to the conclusion that he should be dead. "I'm Doyle, and I'm starting to think that I've come a good bit further than simply across an ocean."
"Well, young Doyle, you are most fortunate that you've arrived here instead of somewhere less hospitable. Had you been truly unfortunate..." Albus sighed, watching him over half-moon glasses as he sipped at steaming tea that carried a distinctly sweet and lemonish smell. "I'm afraid that dark times are once again looming for our world."
As Doyle sat in the comfortable chair, sipping at Minerva's potent tea, he listened to the pair continue their conversation. He learned that they were both part of the faculty of a place called 'Hogwarts', which was apparently some sort of boarding school, and that the school terms would be starting up in a little over a month. The Harry Potter mentioned earlier was one of Minerva's students, and apparently had a positive gift for trouble finding him, a rivalry with 'young Malfoy', and farm more personal notice of the teachers than Doyle thought was normal for a young man, or perhaps still a boy.
Albus took a few moments, pondering his teacup, before murmuring, "It seems this year will be no less interesting than the last. My thanks for the tea, Minerva."
Striding to the fireplace, he reached into a bowl, tossing a handful of something into the fire. When the flames turned from a pale yellow to a lime green, he called out, 'Dumbledore's office' before stepping into the fireplace and vanishing.
"That's not something I see everyday," Doyle gawked. Either he'd hit his head really hard, or there might be a bit more in the tea than just tea leaves and water...
After a few moments, Minerva looked at him. "Mr. Doyle, how much of that did you understand?"
"We're in Scotland, you and Albus who isn't quite Gandalf are part of the faculty of a school, trouble finds Harry Potter quite a lot, and there's some sort of grave peril rising that the government is ignoring. On top of that, you're both apparently practiced at working magic," Doyle shrugged fairly certain that as Albus had mentioned, things could have been much worse. "Does this You-Know-Who that I don't know who have vampires, or only werewolves and more magic users? If he's that smart, you'd think he'd want some followers who can act more than once a month."
Blinking, Minerva murmured, "Our sources of information are rather limited. We believe that he's made some approaches to several groups of vampires, but has not yet been able to come to any agreement. Considering your surprise about the Floo and my wand, I hadn't expected you to know anything about such creatures."
Despite the sound of it, Doyle was certain that Minerva didn't mean influenza when she said 'flu', no matter how much it sounded like that. "I'm starting to suspect that I might be in a completely different world. Some of the things that I knew about before made it clear that there's alternate worlds, parallel dimensions, and different realms, though I'm a bit fuzzy on the differences. I was well aware that magic is real, though you seem to be using it differently than I've seen, and I know a good deal about vampires and werewolves. Not from direct experience, of course, but there are some things that stick once you've learned them."
"A different world..." Minerva shook her head, her fingertip running along the length of her wand. "I'm not certain that we could find a way to send you back."
Remembering the death-device and the Scourge, Doyle shivered. His life had fallen apart after his divorce, well, more accurately the divorce had been part of his life falling apart, but the point was that the only people who might miss him were Angel and Cordelia. Possibly a few people that he owed money to. "I think I can deal with being here instead of there."
"Well, I suppose that we'll need to help you learn about this world. I still have the books from when my boys were in school, I can bring them down for you to go through," Minerva rose from her chair, smiling. "By chance do you know anything about working with children?"
"I spent a few years as a kindergarten teacher," he offered, wondering what had prompted the question. "Shouldn't I learn a bit more about this world before you set me in front of a classroom?"
"Perhaps," she chuckled. "Don't worry at all, you'll do just fine."
End Landings.