Two Slytherins, a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw walk into the great hall. They're only first years and they haven't been sorted yet but they will be the most important people in the school in the years to come.

Not even Dumbledor knows this yet.

They've paired off already, the slytherins together and the gryffindor with the ravenclaw. In time the entire group will come together and take up their assigned rolls.

Eames and Arthur will be the ones to discover how to gain access to someone's mind through their dreams. They will gather spells and potions recipes that are nothing but ideas and make them reality, surprising their enemies.

John, being the most socially adept will be the spy, gathering information with a smile and a cup of tea. He will later learn to be a healer to keep his friends safe.

Sherlock will be the one who sees what the others don't in the casual conversation and common dreams of their fellows. He's the one who will put the pieces together and set the team on the path that will define their futures.

But for tonight they are the same as every other 11 year old in the hall, standing shivering half in awe of their new home.

Ms. McGonnagal opens the door and sweeps through, excited first years on her heels.

And as two Slytherins, a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw walk into the great hall they know that nothing will ever be the same.

Eliot calls John for backup, but Dean's the only hunter who's not three states over, so John calls Dean.

"H'lo," Dean mutters into the phone, trying to rub the crap out of his eye that stuck there while he slept. He knows better than to complain about being called at 3 in the morning.

He drives the Impala all night and is just in time to help Eliot Spencer burn out the nest. As they run out, they meet four coming back in, and they split them up, nice and fair, each hunter getting two. It's the first time Dean has seen Eliot in action, but he's not surprised how good he is. John had been impressed, and it's not like the man impresses easy.

When they get back to town, it's dawn, but Eliot wants to buy him a drink, so they ask around about the bar that never closes - every town has one, and it's usually the same bar that don't ask questions no matter how haggard you look.

They order whiskey, and Eliot tells him that it reminds of home, of Kentucky and horses and fields. He tells him about his first creature, that he found when he was in high school when he went sneaking around the caves just for the fuck of it.

Dean nods, tells a few stories of his own. Just like he would with someone else - talking shop, trading knowledge and stories and scars, dealing, in other words, in the currency of hunters. But the truth is, Dean isn't sure he wants to be here, or that he wants to be with this man who is obviously trying to be a little less and gruff and angry than he wants to be. Dean, too, is more polite than he would be with someone else, and so they sit there, two men who just got up close and bloody with evil, and strive to have a pale, pleasant conversation.

The whole time, Dean wonders what the hell they're doing. Eliot's the guy that his dad hunts with, and what they do beyond that isn't any of Dean's business, or at least it shouldn't be. But Eliot's trying so hard to be nice, to take an interest in Dean, not just in hunting but in his personal life, in his thoughts, and Dean can tell that it doesn't fit, that this kind of gentle civility doesn't hang well on Eliot's shoulders. But the man keeps trying and Dean knows it's well-intentioned so he smiles and tries to act like he gives a shit, even though the whole thing makes him feel like a child being told that even though his new stepmom is going to be around a lot, it's okay because she really just wants to be his friend.

When they part, they shake hands and give each other the nod, the hunter nod that means they hope to see each other again but there's no way they'll say something like "Be safe out there," because that's just bullshit in a life like theirs. But then as Dean sits down in his car seat, Eliot comes back over and says, "Look... look man, I know this is weird. I've never stuck around long enough to meet someone's kids. Especially since, you know, you're not a kid."

"I'm your age," Dean agrees, without thinking about what he's saying or why he's saying it.

Oh, dude. This makes me wish I'd seen the later seasons of SG-1.

Crumbling Around Me


John Sheppard didn’t know where he was precisely (GPS had gone the way of the dodo), but it was too far from Atlantis or the SGC. He was probably in northern California, at least, he was pretty sure he was out of Oregon. Something had come and was systematically destroying the earth, but it wasn’t an alien species he with which was familiar. Mitchell, the SG1 leader John had gone surfing with once (it seemed like eons ago when it was really just ten short days), was in a bad way. He had too many broken bones, a bad concussion and they were too far away from Atlantis or the SGC. John dearly wanted to be near a familiar stargate and a way off the hellhole that the Earth had become. He wanted Atlantis and home. The Earth was no longer home and that was before fire rained from the skies and killed all communication towers. John didn’t know any way of contacting Rodney or anyone. He felt far away in spirit as well as distance. He hoped –maybe praying?- that someone high in the SGC food chain wouldn’t decide that John was dead and to let Carson fly Atlantis away from Earth. It had been very dangerous to travel from Oregon to here. John didn’t want to think about trying for Colorado.

John was far from Atlantis and relying on the competence of strangers. The brothers were out gathering supplies from the rubble. John didn’t know what they had done before, but they had been the only two living beings in a town reduce to ruin and corpses where John’s stolen car had breathed its last. John would have new nightmares and a fresh dose of PTSD, but the whole world would be in the shrink’s office with him. The Winchester brothers though, they took it in stride. The devastation didn’t seem to touch them, but that didn’t mean that they were heartless. They didn’t complain about Mitchell being wounded and slowing them down. They didn’t mention that the man was probably not going to survive. In fact, they administered medical attention that –while not with Carson’s delicate touch- made it easier for Mitchell to breath. They were much better field medics than John and they could find better drugs. If Mitchell did survive to Atlantis, it was because of the Winchester brothers. They were better at retrieving useful items such as food or fuel. If Sheppard survived to Atlantis, it would be partly because of the Winchester brothers.

Sometimes, Sheppard wanted to know what Sam and Dean had been before the world crumbled, but then he observed Dean use a gun with the confidence of a Marine and he watched Sam use a machete to hack a man-like creature to death without pause. Sometimes he didn’t want to know. Their past didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they agreed to help Sheppard get Mitchell south and then out to sea to Atlantis. All that mattered was that Sheppard could trust them to keep watch at night. He knew that if something attacked them at night, the Winchesters would defend them to their deaths.

Dean knocked on the door of the little hovel, and the roof of their chosen bunker of this ghost town shook dangerously, dislodged dust rained on John. Dean was waiting for acknowledgement.

“Come,” John said. He waited until Dean proved himself to be Dean before setting down his gun beside him.

Dean stood over the invalid, evaluating his health. “I found a boat. Big enough for four and supplies. It has a working engine and a sail. Sammy’s looking for enough fuel. We might be able to boat to your floating city. It’ll be safer in the water. Hopefully.”

Hope was in small supply in this trashed California city. Only a handful of humans were alive in a hundred square mile radius and half of them would gladly kill the other half. Who knew how dangerous the waters would be, but Dean was correct: they had a better chance surviving the probable sea serpents than the monsters on land.

“I’ll pack up Mitchell.”

Dean nodded. “I’ll catch forty winks. Wake me when Sammy returns.”

Dean was a light sleeper, John doubted that it was possible for the elder brother to sleep through the younger one’s return but John agreed anyway.

John picked up his gun and took his post by the door. Maybe they would all live to tomorrow.

Hope was all that remained.

Evan lets out a sigh of relief when his call is picked up on the second ring. "McGarrett."

"Steve," he says, and he can almost hear the incandescent grin on the other side of the phone.

"Evan!" the man practically shouts. Another voice starts in the background; it rises and falls in pitch, and would sound vaguely annoyed if Steve's laughter wasn't laid over it. "Long time, no see, man. What have you been up to? You Stateside?"

"Um," Evan replies to the first question, because wow, that's a tough one to answer. As for the second- "That's kinda why I'm calling, actually."

Steve's always been pretty good at reading Evan's tone of voice; his own voice sobers almost instantly. "This isn't a social call."

"My boyfriend is missing," Evan says without preamble. "And look, Steve, I wouldn't call, but he's been working with me on this project I've been assigned to, super top-secret shit, and the people who probably have him-" Evan's breath catches as his imagination starts up again, David bleeding, David screaming, David begging them to stop, stop, stop.

"We're on our way," Evan hears before the phone clicks, before he can ask who we is, before he can even tell Steve where he is.

--

We turns out to be Steve and the voice from earlier. Evan actually finds them by zeroing in on the sound before he can see the men approaching; it's how he knows they're getting close to his hotel room. He doesn't even want to know how Steve found him.

"-saying, Steven, if you're going to drag my ass out of bed on a Sunday and fly it halfway across the country, I'd just appreciate a little time, you know, an overnight bag, spare underwear-" The man notices, Evan standing in the open doorway, waves halfheartedly. "Detective Danny Williams, I'm McGarrett's keeper," and then he's off again.

Steve can't quite hide the smirk as he reaches out and pulls Evan into a one-armed hug and claps him on the back. "Give us the details," he says quietly. "We'll find him, Evan."

--

They do.

They do, and that's all that matters. Evan doesn't care about the burning warehouse or the seven dead members of the Lucian Alliance or the laws he'd personally seen Steve and his partner break - nineteen, to be exact, and Evan hadn't been present for most of it - he doesn't care about the paperwork that's going to be involved in this, or the fact that he's probably in some pretty deep shit for going around the SGC's protocols. He's got David back, David's going to be fine, and nothing else matters.

"Thanks," he says to Steve, who smiles, and then again to Danny, who nods and sticks out his hand.

"I'm not calling you if this one goes missing," Danny says, jerking his free thumb at Steve. "Not that I don't think you could find him, but my life, my life would be so much simpler-"

He cuts himself off when Steve puts a hand in the small of his back, leans into the touch, and scowls. "So much simpler," he repeats, but Evan doesn't believe him, not for a second.

I saw this prompt a year ago, and really liked it. I wrote about 1,700 words of it... and then I turned it into a big bang. I hope you enjoy! Discovering Home. Also on Ao3.