"Don't you think it's a little... rough?" One of the House Heads said, quietly, to the Headmaster. He shook his head, long beard gently rustling.

"Oh, it seems so, but I only wish we could offer them the education they will get where they're going."

The pair of elder professors gazed at the group of eight students, once prized by their Houses and the school itself. They looked so dejected, a bit angry, sullen, afraid. Where would they be going? What had they done wrong? In his typical fashion the Headmaster hardly raised his voice at their concerns, instead lifting his spindly fingers for them to be silent. His office was filled with tension, even then.

"You eight shall find... that your destiny could not be contained by one school." He told them, and their various expressions of disbelief, worry and curiosity changed with each passing moment. "Your future will rely on your cleverness," he glanced at the Ravenclaws, "your strength of will," he said of the Griffindors, "your persistence," he remarked to the Hufflepuffs, "and of course on your desires," he finished with a glance at the two Slytherin. "What's more," he stood up and the other House Heads did likewise, but they were as confounded as the students themselves at all this, "you will be doing so together."

The Slytherin pair took a look at their Griffindor counterparts and sneered. "Not bloody likely," the white-haired girl muttered.

"Now now," the Headmaster said, voice like quiet silk, "you will see how it all turns out. Think of it as ... a new sort of Tri-Wizard contest. You will no longer be parts of a separate House, but instead form a new one. And the world itself will be your competitor."

"With all due respect, Headmaster," the Slytherin Head spoke up, "I am sure that the rest of us would have wanted more say in all of this."

"Indeed... Indeed," the Headmaster replied with that ever-so-faint smile of his, concealed mostly by his beard, "yet if you had, they would hardly be on this new adventure of theirs, would they. Tut tut!" He interrupted any other discussion with a clap of his hands, and several House Elves came with the students' things borne on the air with their innate magic. "It's time you were on your way. Fear not!" He finally raised his voice, almost jubilant where everyone else was still confused. "Your adventure will I am certain, eventually be of your liking."

***

They sat in one large carriage, drawn by huge non-magical horses along a path that had hardly been traveled by foot in decades. It had been quiet for a long time, after their initial arguments about seating arrangements and how angry they were at being expelled from their school.

"It's not so much 'expelled'," the Griffindor girl said, "he never said that word."

"Well what would you call it then," the Slytherin boy grumbled, "getting the boot, right out into the woods? Least he could have called our parents."

"I don't think so," the Ravenclaw boy said. "I mean... Look at us? We're not heading back home, we're being transferred to another school. I wonder what it's going to be like?"

"I don't even know what the name of it is," the Hufflepuff girl moaned.

Instead of bickering with the others, the dark-skinned Griffindor boy pounded on the front wall of the carriage and yelled, "Oi! Where're we headed?"

The House Elf that was helping to drive the large carriage peered down into the main area, his floppy ears dangling. "It's called House Domina, sir. We've got quite some traveling ahead of us, if you need anything just say so! We are here to help you!"

"Oh well that sussed it," the Hufflepuff boy sighed. "Never heard of it."

"Wait, wait, I have!" The Ravenclaw girl got all jittery. "House Domina... yeah, it was like, years and years ago. Our folks might have been at Hogwarts then. Split off from the school, took some weird students in and they've been around ever since."

"We're not weirder," three others said at the same time, and suddenly the tension in the carriage was lifted. They laughed hard at that - they weren't really weird, but individually perhaps they weren't all that mainstream.

"Okay, introductions all round then," the Griffindor girl said, pulling out a quill and paper, glancing at each of them in turn. She sat in the backwards-facing seat, between the other Griffindor, and the Hufflepuffs. Across from them were the Slytherin and Ravenclaw pairs. "You know I was on the school paper, right?"

"We can't forget," the Slytherin girl muttered. She however, went first. "Cressida Whateley, Slytherin 5th year. Seeker for the Slytherin quidditch team." She was rakishly pretty, tossed silver-white hair that formed a mop over her narrow pale-yellow eyes. She was slender, tall and lean. If she'd been a Muggle - god forbid - she may have wound up being a supermodel with her looks. But she was obviously not into that kind of 'thing' - she'd rather be out in the air with her tiny owl, chasing after a snitch.

She glanced at her House-mate, had to nudge him as he seemed to be checking out the Hufflepuff boy. "Oh... Heh, Cepheus Graves at your service. Slytherin 5th year, Arithmancy and Runes are my specialties." He was as dark as Cressida was light, and muscled well for a bookworm type. His smile said volumes, however - he was a charmer that was for sure.

It looked for all the world like he'd halfway charmed that Hufflepuff boy, too, who blushed but perked up. "Gideon Fleetwood, Hufflepuff 5th year. I, um... I work with Charms and um, Dueling." He was red-headed and well-built, it suited him that he looked the part of a duelist. At least all the Hufflepuff girls thought so, and it really did look like Cepheus did as well. He wasn't sure what to think, so instead he passed the 'introduce yourself' glance to his House partner.

She pushed her heavy glasses up her short, flat nose, and annunced, "Lyra LaPaine, Hufflepuff, also 5th year. I'm ... I was, I guess, planning on specializing in Care of Creatures and Herbology, sciences and stuff..." Her appearance said she was more Asian than the Griffindor boy, with jet black hair cut short and stylishly, but she had extremely pale, almost moon-white eyes that matched the large crystal earrings dangling from her ears.

The Ravenclaw girl said, "Daphne Mockridge, Ravenclaw 5th year, and I'm a Potions buff. I do a lot of research into health and healing too." She was slender in the way that Cressida was thin, but not very sharply cut. Her dark skin was paired with red braided hair and equally red eyes. She had a ready smile, and eager, wide eyes.

Her companion spoke up, "Ambrose Tuckett, Ravenclaw 5th... I work on Wards, Hexes and Curse-breaking. My dad's an Auror you know." He had the look of a scholar on him, short and full hay-colored blond hair, brown eyes sporting glasses, and freckled skin that said he hardly could put a tan on if he tried.

The Griffindor boy leaned back and sighed, "Adrian Liu, Griffindor 5th year, undeclared major..." He added a moment later, "I could probably beat you to that snitch though, Whateley. I'm a good flier." Though his laid-back seeming attitude while talking was accentuated by what looked to be his 'surfer' style brown shaggy hair and hooded amber eyes, it was obvious by his actions in getting things done had landed him in Griffindor.

That left one more, their 'reporter', who spoke up with, "Joseline Jones, Griffindor 5th year - isn't that funny we're all fifth years - History and Divination buff. Now that that's all settled," she let her quill finish up the notes she'd taken on each of them, "I want to find out why we're here..." Joseline was more of a honey blond than the Ravenclaw boy, but shared his freckled creamy skin, and had brightly blue eyes.

Their discussion topic was a hot one. Things they hadn't dared speak while in the Headmaster's chambers came to the surface. Yes, they were a bit intrigued by this all but it seemed so arbitrary! Why take a bunch of students out of their perfectly good studies and toss them out into another school? They were not all first-ranked students, but neither were they in any way failures. Obviously Joseline and Cressida were the 'top notch' kids, highly competitive and willing to try hard to get what they wanted. And equally obviously, Adrian was the 'middle of the road' kid who neither specialized nor neglected anything in the school. As a kind of jack-of-all-trades, that kind of thing could be of use in the real world, far more than, say, Cepheus' Arithmancy grades. He was an intellectual by chance, not by design - it just so happened he had a knack for both subjects he enjoyed.

However much they tried, obviously they couldn't resolve the basic question about their sudden transfer until they got where they were going. Thus, their topics started to drift a bit. Standard gossip, all the way down to hidden secrets. And to her credit, Joseline put her quill and paper away when they got to that point, just in case it wrote down things that the others might fault her for.

"My family had a history of curses put on it," Ambrose said, "which was why da' went into the Auror business. I figure I'm not really as good as him to get into that line of work, but at least I know me' curses."

"Who would possibly want to curse you?" Cressida muttered, and while Ambrose was about to say something, he realized she was just being caustic and let it slide. "My family ... well, my family are idiots," she admitted. "Half of them got themselves arrested as Death Eaters during the war, and the other half let them. I mean, if you're going to be a stupid Death Eater, why not just do it right." She flourished her hand in the air and rolled her eyes, "Show off your tattoo and kill Muggles in the street while you're at it. Morons."

"I'm... Muggle-born, my folks are doctors, and my uncle's a science professor at a university." Daphne said, trying to avoid anyone's eyes and waiting for the inevitable Slytherin laughter, but Cressida merely nodded, and Cepheus said nothing.

"That's okay with me. You're way too smart to just be a plain Muggle. They wouldn't know what to do with you anyway." Cressida said, eliciting a bit of a surprised look from the Griffindors. "What, just because I'm in Slytherin means I have to be blinded by it?"

"No, no, it's just ... sort of a surprise is all." Joseline said. "My family's pureblooded, but..." she dropped her voice, "a lot of them were Squibs." At the mention of the word, almost everyone leaned back and gave her pitying looks. "Yeah. I know. My aunt, and uncle both. My mom's the only one who's a proper Witch. She was really glad when I started showing magic signs."

"Mom and dad didn't do much magic," Adrian muttered, "I mean, they're wizards and all, but not to see our house or anything. Course, they treated my great-uncle like he was the 'idiot in the family' whenever he'd come over, and he did magic all the time. I didn't even know what Hogwarts was when I got my invitation. I was lucky Uncle Zaphram dropped by when he did or I'd still be at home in a Muggle school or something."

"No you would probably be ditching Muggle school or something," Daphne said, and the others laughed - it was true, he was known to be a bit of a dead-head at times, but always pulled through with reasonable grades. But that was with magic courses to keep him occupied.

"My dad's a wizard," Gideon said, "I don't know my mother, he won't talk about her." The others got silent, unsure of what to say about that. "But at least he's proud of me, I'm glad I'm good at ... things." He shifted under the attention, for such a good looking and talented boy he certainly wilted in the spotlight.

Cepheus leaned back and put on his most charming smile, and was clearly about to say something entirely inappropriate, when Cressida smacked him on the shoulder and gave him her most horrifying glare. "Don't you dare mess with his mind like that, you pervert," she spat.

"Hey I wasn't going to say anything! I just wondered what all the things are he's good at..." Cepheus said it anyway, getting him pummled by Cressida's hard fist and on the other side by Ambrose who suddenly felt like he wasn't sitting far enough away from the young man. "Well, if you'd let me get to my family beefs, it's that they don't know."

That calmed the rest of them down a bit, until Gideon tilted his head down and said, "they... don't know you're--"

"If they did, they'd have my wand broken... It's stupid," Cepheus said, suddenly a bit less full of himself and more trying to distract himself with his fingers forming knots. "Hogwarts is where I can really just be myself, like most folks... Could, I guess."

"Well I'm sure that House Domina will be okay for you," Joseline said, "I mean, given the name and all."

"That doesn't excuse his behavior," Cressida said and then turned back to Gideon. "Don't you let him mess with you. He's great at leaving a trail of angry ex's behind him."

"Now you sound like a den mother," Cepheus muttered and slumped back into the well-padded seat.

Quiet and pretty Lyra looked at the others, and said, "well, you know your families, but I don't... I think there were a number of Animagus in my history, given how animals kind of ... affect me." She glanced away when the others looked at her, "I was orphaned as a young child, thankfully not in Muggle territory. I ... sort of ..."

"You were raised by wolves or something?" Adrian said, "cool."

"Not as cool as you'd like to think," Lyra sighed. "There are ... well, there are unregistered Animagus running around all over the place, but there are also unregistered weres out there too. Please don't tell anyone about that," she whispered. "It would be the death of me."

"Can you shapeshift?" Joseline asked, genuinely curious. "It's such a rare talent, really, people practice for ages and hardly get it right."

"Even if I could, I don't really want to..." Lyra gazed up at the complicated inlay in the ceiling tiles, "I saw too many of my foster family wind up injured or worse when they couldn't change back Human quickly enough. I'm kind of afraid I'd get stuck. I like having thumbs... You know, to get out of traps and stuff."

"Ew, that's awful," Daphne said, "imagine getting caught in a trap? I don't understand why the Weres aren't better represented in the Ministry, there are a good number of them around these days."

"You're one of those political activists in your spare time, aren't you," Cressida said, and Daphne rolled her head around.

"Well, yes. I mean, out in the Muggle world, they're trying as hard as can be to get some kind of equality for everyone, right? Well in the Magical world, what have we got? Humans Humans Humans. Even though we're not even the first - or even the best at magic..."

"If we didn't have wands, we'd be sunk," Ambrose said. "It's true."

Cressida flicked her eyebrow a little, and casually said, "I'm pretty sure that there's a nymph or two in my family line. So I can't really fault you for wanting to ugh free the House Elves or something." She gave an exaggerated shudder, and the others laughed. They didn't question her statement either, there were other folks at Hogwarts who had weirder blood.

They didn't realize what kind of weirdness would meet them at Domina...

"So we've got a lot of different skills and backgrounds," Joseline said, putting her feet up on Ambrose's knees, where he immediately started fiddling with her booted toes. Might as well get relaxed with each other, she'd said earlier, and thus this was her way of doing just that. "We don't have any kind of Dark Arts around, which is good."

"Oh and why is that good? Wouldn't we be more well-rounded with one?" Cepheus said.

"Because it would tear us apart," Cressida said, "and that's obviously not what our former Headmaster wants of us."

"True, true," Daphne said, tempted to put her feet on someone's knees too, finally settling on waggling her toes in her sandals until Adrian took notice and bundled his arms around her feet when she did. "They said that 'his' best tactic was to keep people from trusting each other."

"Voldemort was an asshole," Adrian said, his usual drawl belying the simple truth of the statement as it sent shudders down the other's spines by the mere mention of 'his' name. "I'm glad he got what was coming to him."

"It really does show that isolation doesn't work very well, they lost, right?" Gideon said. "Teamwork and all."

"Teamwork saved the day," Cepheus said, and was just about to start lifting his own feet up onto Gideon's lap, but Cressida's glare put an end to that. Gideon laughed at them, waved her off, and allowed the intrusive, well-polished shoes onto his slacks. "See, teamwork," Cepheus smirked at Cressida. Thankfully, Cressida had no intention of putting her feet onto Lyra's lap, and likewise from the Hufflepuff's side.

"So many lives were lost," Lyra said, and they sobered a bit. "I wondered how they even got Hogwarts functional afterwards. But at least the world is a better place now."

"Let's hope so," Ambrose nodded. "Let's hope that there aren't any other sociopathic murderers in charge of death cults out there..."

In the way that was only ever possible by being fifteen, the group took a collective deep gulp of worry, and an exhale of relief when nothing seemed to be ready to prove him wrong. It took another hour or more of rolling, slightly bumpy travel to reach their destination. In that time, they learned a little more about each other's expectations out of life. But also, something seemed to be ticking in Joseline's mind. They were together for a reason. And they weren't expelled, really.

But what were they going to be heading into?