InsaneJournal

Who: Dean Thomas + OTA
When: Friday morning in Novemer; Friday morning in August
Where: South East England; Upper West Side
What: Dean's entrance
Rating/status: TBD


The morning dawned grey and cold on the little village of Peasmarsh, East Sussex. Mist curled it's icy fingers around the lampposts which lined the street. Trees and lawns glittered with last night's frost.

Dean walked out of the corner shop, sticking his wand back into his pocket. He had felt bad using a Confundus charm on the shopkeeper, but he was running out of money, both wizard and muggle. Unwrapping his newly purchased Mars bar and sticking it in his mouth, he unfolded his newspaper. Nothing obvious on the front page to say whether You Know Who had attacked any muggles, so Dean turned to the sports section to check the football scores. West Ham was playing well this year, and reading the winning scores was one of the only good things in Dean’s life lately. Satisfied, Dean tossed the paper and the candy wrapper in the nearest bin, then turned on his heel and apparated, meaning to land on a secluded riverbank a few miles west.

Imagine his surprise, then, when he stopped spinning and found himself staring not at a calm and peaceful stream, but instead at the side of a bus displaying an advert for Marlboro Cigarettes. An old woman nearby barked at him for making a racket, but no one else seemed to say anything about him appearing out of thin air. Wherever he was, he reckoned it was much farther North than he'd meant to go, judging from all the snow on the ground. He sat down on the bus stop bench, trying to get his bearings. A man next to him had his head buried in an unfamiliar newspaper (whose pictures weren't moving, giving Dean at least one clue where he might be). The front page story was about the sudden blizzard which had covered the city in snow and ice. Just then, the man noticed Dean and said, "It's awful, isn't it, all this snow in August? Ain't Natural."

Dean, confused, barely knew how to respond. "August? What do you mean August?"

The man closed his paper and tapped the date on the front cover. Dean took it from him to get a closer look. Sure enough, it read "August 12th, 1964   New York City"

"What!?" Dean gasped, his voice rising in pitch. He stood from the bench and took off at a run, not knowing where exactly he was going, fight or flight response kicking in.

The man called after him, "Hey, that's my paper!" but it was no use, Dean was already half a block away and showed no signs of slowing down.