World Description: As a starter, this is sometimes crossed with the kin world. Having said that, here's how this runs:
Snake and Otacon find a blog on the internet with a photo of a girl who looks like Olga. They find out she goes to a school called Hogwarts. Somehow (this differs) they end up at Hogwarts.
For some reason (it occurs to me I have no idea why) they need to stick around for a bit, so Snake volunteers to teach them kids that want to how to dodge/evaluate their terraine/self defence if they lose their wands.
Castle attacked by death Eaters. Snake, Otacon and the kids who were there for that class are out on the grounds running an obstacle course. Otacon is taken out by a spell (possible Sectum Sempra or whatever) while looking after some of the kids. They all flee into the woods, where they have to become a strong unified group capable of attacking and defending.
Universe of Wrong fic by *blinkblink*
Disclaimer: I don't own MGS or Harry Potter. ^^
Solid Snake was first and foremost a soldier. As such, he could prioritise and move calmly and quickly in situations where most people became shaking gibbering messes. This was one of those situations.
There were three facts which needed immediate attention, and which received it in a split-second. First, the school was under attack and further attackers were likely if not certain to show up, and they were sitting ducks in the middle of the open grounds. Second, he was the only capable adult in a group of panic-stricken children. Third, Hal was quickly bleeding to death in his arms, left side ripped open as though by a knife. They needed to get the hell out of the open and away from danger, and Hal needed immediate medical attention. These were mutually exclusive goals.
The children were frozen. A few were staring at the school, where the great double doors had been thrown open in the enemy's breach. Occasional spells were still shooting from the doors, bright red and green and orange lights which flickered harmlessly out into the night air or ran to ground in the gravel drive. The school had at least not been taken yet. Most of the children, though, were staring in horror at the blood pouring from Hal's side, now covering his dark coat and Dave's staunching arm and legs. Some of the younger ones were quaking, older ones sweating and clasping their wands tightly.
"All of you, pay attention." He barked it out in his best drill-sergeant tone. No time to let them think. "Everyone look to their left. See the person standing there?" he waited for them all to do it. Don't look at Hal, you can feel him shaking, feel his heart beating. He's still alive. There�s still time. Look at them. If you lose them now you�re done for. �That person is your partner. I don�t care what house they're in or how old they are. You are responsible for them. No one alone. Who doesn't have a partner now?" There was a scrambling to reorganize rows while the children tried to hook themselves onto someone they knew who was to their left. They were slow, agonizingly slow about it, but they were going as quick as they could. Two were turned out of the mess as being unpartnered, and were promptly attached to each other.
"Good. Everyone holds their wands. Think of the easiest offensive spell you know, and be ready to use it." He hoped they understood. The youngest ones were only following the tone of his voice, he knew, but he hoped the older ones would be strong enough, quick enough to understand. He pulled Hal's coat about his thin chest as tight as he could with his left hand, picked up his sidearm with his right. Hal was gasping for breath now, and shuddering, and Dave knew with a horrible certainty that even if he brought him into an ER right now, they wouldn't be able to save him. He slipped his right arm under Hal's knees, left around his shoulders and stood with the slighter man in his arms, gun ready to fire under Hal's legs.
"You, Potter. You and your partner are our six- at our back. You hear anyone following us, pass the word up to me right away, got it?"
The boy, pale but alert under the dark mess of his hair, nodded sharply. His partner, a gangly boy with dirty blond hair and deep-set eyes, shivered and slid closer to Potter.
"Come on, all of you. A pair with six or seventh years in behind me, then the first and second years. If you need light, deal with it, but only three lights at the most."
Dusk was quickly becoming dark, and while Snake knew his eyes were sharp enough to do without any light, the children certainly couldn't. "Don't talk, move as quietly as possible," he hissed over his shoulder, and turned over the lawn towards the forest.
The old forest was, he remembered, called the Forbidden Forest, although Snake wasn't sure whether that was its name or its description. It was one of the darkest Snake had seen, and he had seen plenty of the world's forests. The trees were mostly deciduous, oak and ash with a few beech and birch here and there. All the trees' bark, though, even the birches, seemed to be unnaturally dark, and most of the trees were draped with moss and thick catkins which hung down in tangled skeins. The children weren't happy about entering the forest, he could tell from their nervous motions and jittery reactions to the quietest sounds.
As they pressed under the eves and deeper into the forest the smaller and cleaner trees, the birches and beeches, all but disappeared and the twisted warped ashes and oaks took prominence. Their roots curled up out of the ground like grasping arthritic fingers, gnarled branches covered in dirty lichen and ugly blemishes creaked in the wind and tore at the kids' cloaks making them shiver and moan as they bit their tongues to stop from shouting out.
He didn't take them far, only a few minutes walk in, in a vaguely oblong clearing. They could go further later, if needed, but Hal had to be attended to now. He stopped and turned to the kids who gathered in around him like startled chicks around a hen. He took a quick count, thirty-two. Goddamn.
Three of the kids were holding their wands up, each letting out a pale circle of yellow light. Rather than thinking about how pale Hal looked even under the buttery glow, he made a reckoning. He knew all the kids there, although not all by name. There were five six and seventh years, one Slytherin, one Ravenclaw, three Gryffindors. It was Huffelpuff's night to practice that game of theirs, he remembered, only a few hours ago they had been whining about missing the class, and there were exams to study for. Damn exams, he needed older kids.
There were a bunch of kids in the middle years, eighteen, with an even division among Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Huffelpuff, and three Slytherins. Nine first and second years, one Slytherin, four Gryffindors, two of the other two. Most partnerships, he noted, were of both uneven years and houses. That was good. These kids needed mixing up.
Even as he thought it, his heart clenched. Now was both exactly and not at all the time to be thinking about that kind of thing. Hal would have smiled. He was grimacing now. Snake dropped carefully to his knees and let him down. He pocketed the Berretta carefully, left arm wrapped around Hal's shoulders still to keep his head elevated, resting against Snake's collarbone. Hal, still vaguely conscious, had twisted his right hand into the fabric of Snake's shirt. His left was pressed fervently, uselessly, against his left side.
He turned to the Ravenclaw boy to his left, one of the two seventh years. He was good at throwing but crap at using the landscape to his advantage. "Is there any kind of first aid any of you know that might help him?" It was goddamn magic, wasn't it? Wasn't this what magic was for? There was no way to save Hal now, he knew, except by magic. Damndamndamn.
"There are plenty of healing spells, sir, but I don't know many. I can close up cuts, but..."
But this was a hell of a lot worse than a cut. "Any of the rest of you?" He cast his glances over the rest of the kids, eyes high enough to only catch those of the older ones. No point in pressuring the young ones. The Slytherin seventh year admitted he could close cuts as well as set bones. His eyes, travelling over the shivering, scared kids, caught a hand half-raised in apprehension. The bushy-haired girl who hung out with Potter. Grainger.
"Yes," he barked, and regretted it because she startled and the red-head next to her glared but dammit there wasn't time for coddling. Hal's hand clenched tighter.
"I've read some textbooks, sir, about this kind of thing..." she generalized, and didn't let her eyes drop below his shoulders while avoiding his eyes. Afraid, uncertain.
"No experience?" It wasn't fair of him, he was pinning this on them, and if- when- Hal died they were going to blame themselves but right now he couldn't make himself care and it wasn�t as if he'd ever had a lot of time for empathizing anyway. You don't let your partner die.
"No, sir, but I thought, I-" she stumbled to a stop, swallowed, gathered herself visibly and ploughed on altogether at speed, "but I thought if Jeremy and Steele and I worked together we could probably manage to help him." Jeremy and Steele were the two Seventh years. They seemed resolved.
"Then do it. The rest of you, form a wide circle facing outwards. Partners. Watch the woods. You see anything, give a shout." The kids didn't need to see this.
"I read in Madame Willhelmina's Mediwitch about closing internal wounds from the outside; she says-" Grainger began, the other two hunkering down to discuss with her like some sort of conference, their partners hanging around uncertainly just behind them. Snake swallowed a curse.
"Listen, you three," he hissed, low enough that the rest wouldn't hear. "In three minutes, probably less, he's going to bleed to death. You don't have time for this. If you can stop the bleeding, do it. If you can seal the wounds, do it. Whatever you�re going to do it, you have to do it now." Abruptly he lowered Hal to the ground, bending over him, and pulled his arm away from his side in one quick motion. His coat stuck to his side with the suction of the wet blood, but Snake peeled it away. Granger swayed, and Jeremy the Ravenclaw blanched instantly. The Slytherin, Steele, just stared, eyes wide.
Jeremy was the first to pull it together. He scrambled over to Hal's side, wand in his hand, and murmured something. The tip of his wand lit up blue, and he guided it in a long line along the gash in Hal's torso. Granger, shivering, slipped over to Jeremy's right side near Hal's shoulder, leaving room for Steele on Jeremy's left, and began moving her wand over Hal's torso several inches in from the gash. Steele, galvanized, pulled himself over to the empty space by Jeremy's left and began like Jeremy to move his now blued wand along the gash.
Keeping a close track of Hal's harsh breathing, Snake surveyed the assembled kids. The older ones were at least the most dedicated of the bunch. The youngers, with less studying to pull them away, were a mix of devoted and drop-ins. Most of them, at least, would follow his orders without question, and those who didn't would be herded by their elders. Still, it was a hell of a situation to be stuck in. Minding Jack had been plenty hard enough, and the kid had had training and combat experience, even if he had repressed it.
He exhaled sharply, causing the first years closest to him to wince away towards the deep shadows of the forest. What a place to take shelter in. All the sounds of a forest at night were whispering to him, trees creaking ominously, owls hooting, god only knew what thrashing around in the underbrush less than a click away. Thousands of years of evolution were telling him that running around in a dark forest at night was damn stupid. He crushed those instincts with a sour smile. He was a hell of a lot scarier than anything this forest was likely to contain.
He glanced down at Hal. The bleeding seemed to have slowed drastically, although Snake found himself wondering whether the bleeding was being stopped or just redirected inwards as the kids healed the outer wounds. There was nothing he could do about it. He could feel his frustration, his anger and fear all twisting together inside, swelling as they did so to throb through his head, pounding against his ears, eyes and then filling his chest so tight that he could hardly breath.
Focus. His heart beat echoed in his head like a drum, and he forced himself to listen to it and freeze his emotions. They were not important. They could be attended to later.
"Don't move," he said, pitching his voice to be audible to the entire circle, "but anyone who's been in the forest before, raise your hand."
Ten hands went up, some straight but most tentative and shaking. He was not surprised to note that two of them were Potter and the redhead, Weasley. Weasley's brothers had also raised theirs. "Anyone who's been in more than once?" Four hands lowered. "Alright, you six and your partners, gather over on that side," he gestured to the right of the circle, furthest from the entrance to the forest. "The rest of you shuffle along to make room."
The kids did so, each watching the forest nervously, as though it might reach out and pull them into its depths the moment they took their eyes off it. He looked down to Hal again. The wound in his side had disappeared, although there were several raised scars where the skin hadn't sealed together smoothly.
"Can you three do anything about blood loss?"
Jeremy the Ravenclaw looked blank, but the Slytherin furrowed his eyebrows in thought. The girl looked up at him. "There are several potions which restore lost blood, but they would be in the infirmary."
Good to know, but immediately useless since he was pretty sure they couldn't be made in the middle of no where. "You can't make them here, can you?"
The girl blinked, as if surprised he would ask such a question, and shook her head.
"No, but if someone could sneak into the castle..."
"No one will be going back there in the immediate future." And Hal