A/N: I'm sure you're all wondering, heck, Shadow, what is this? Didn't you say you were quitting this story? With such serious and grim words too!?

Well, damn it, I wanted to make a Timeline 3. So deal with it.

Ehm, introducing….

Timeline 3

(AKA: The author has a weird sense of humor, wants to affirm against villain monologues because I just can't let that stand, and uh, just can't seem to let a story die)

In which: Voldemort isn't just, absolutely batshit crazy (he was in-verse), meaning that Quirrell doesn't summon the ghost, meaning that he actually escapes with the Stone and Danny (because it was the ghost's appearance that told Remus and in turn Rescue Party exactly where Danny was) and that somehow, just because the world is a better place, except not really, Danny isn't depressed as shit without knowing it (he was absolutely super depressed the entire time of Humanity even before the ghostly stuff and that was no good). Okay, that's all the discrepancies, now let's go.

"It wasn't because I was different," Danny said, scowling, face steadfastly orientated towards the crumbling brick wall. They were in a sloppy hideaway, old ruins out in the countryside. Danny felt gross. He hadn't showered in days, and he could certainly smell it.

And that wasn't to talk about his company, whom he felt was much more morally disgusting than he felt physically.

"What wasn't?" Quirinus Quirrell, his captor asked. There was a sharp edge in his voice, but mostly the sound of it was all tired.

"My friends, not talking to me, in… November. It wasn't," Danny said stubbornly, still refusing to look at the man, his turbaned head, wand.

Quirrell laughed, an incredulous, strained high laugh. "And how would you know? You don't even remember anything from that month!"

"I just know," he said, scuffling the dust with his toes. His shoes sat next to him, taking the opportunity to recycle some fresh air in the less-than-sealed ruins they were currently occupying. They stunk, too. But Danny couldn't tell the difference anymore between Danny-stink and shoe-stink.

They were both silent for a long time. Danny thought he could hear the sound of a distant cow. Moo, it went.

Great. In the middle of fucking nowhere.

His mom would've scolded him for the profanity, but he felt it was rather appropriate for the situation. He could curse all he liked.

"Look," Quirrell said, and the sound of it startled Danny so much that he snapped his gaze to the man, before he remembered that he was trying to pretend his kidnapper's existence was all some terrible hallucination and quickly set his gaze somewhere else. "This is only a temporary… set-back. That power I promised you, that ability to take control of your life, stop others from ever hurting you, it will come."

Danny scoffed, then set his head in his knees. He wished that none of this had happened. Why me? he asked, plaintively, of no one.

Seeing his silence, Quirrell continued on, voice becoming somewhat more urgent, more frantic, as if for some reason convincing Danny, his kidnapee, was desperately important to him. "I just need to find a place to process the Stone. To brew it into the Elixir of Life. Then we, and my master, can become immortals. Imagine it! And then, then we will have all the – "

Danny burst into tears. He couldn't help it, he tried to keep the sound of it quiet, but the shaking of his body was too obvious to mistake.

"I – I don't want that," he said, sound muffled between his knees. "I don't want ultimate power, or immorality. I just want to go home."

Quirrell was silent, again, for a long moment.

"But your parents, they're at fault for – "

"They're my parents," Danny said, not sparing the moment to lift his head to look at the monster. "I don't care."

Another silence. Then, he felt tentative hands wrapping around him. He froze, feeling shudders.

Was Quirrell hugging him?

This was too much.

With a violent motion, he stood up, jerking away from the man's grasp. "Don't touch me," he said, eyes wide, stepping away. "You kidnapped me, and, and took control of my mind. That's, it's," Danny couldn't describe how deeply that had scared him, "and now you're, what do you want from me?"

Quirrell met his eyes briefly, then seemed to look past him. "Is it so hard to believe that I see myself in you?"

The disgust that coiled inside of Danny at those words defied description. It was strong. It made him want to stomp his feet, throw a tantrum, run away. Get as far away from this crazy man as he could, hit something. But when his gaze drifted between those rubble, crumbling bricks, he saw the empty expanse of land before him, the impossibility of escape, and he… deflated.

"Just go away," he said, turning around, returning to his strategy of trying to pretend the man didn't exist.

Quirrell evidently opted for entirely ignoring the content of his outburst. "Don't worry," the man said, his calm, reassuring tone making Danny feel sick. "We'll get there soon. We'll rendevouz with the Truthseekers, and make the Stone, and gain what we rightfully deserve."

.

.

"What are you doing!?" an angry man yelled at them. He was donned in wizarding clothes that screamed "wizard" so archetypally that it was almost ridiculous. His monoglass only accented the look. "Kidnapping a child? This is unforgivable, Quirinus!"

Danny stared at the very wizardly wizard, vaguely confused. His head felt foggy. Part of him knew why – a, a confundus charm? But the rest of him felt so dazed he was just having trouble standing up. Why was he yelling?

"Forgive me, Elder Jacques," Quirrell said cooly. "You do not seem to know what you speak of. May you fetch Master Engrits for me?"

Without another word, Quirrell stepped past the wizard, brushing by him in the doorway. He tugged Danny's sleeve as he did so, and the boy stumblingly followed in after him.

"Ah, I see," Quirrell commented idly, seeing the dusty furniture, old red and black dapplings of counters filled to the brim with books, the lack of windows driving the expanse dank and dark. "This place was as it has always been."

Wizardly wizard sighed from behind him. Danny whirled around to look at him, all wide eyed startlement. "I suppose it is." A pause. "Just tell me, Quirinus," the man gestured a thick hand towards Danny and he blinked, stepping backwards and away at the gesture, "that this isn't what I think it is."

"Fetch Master Engrits, Elder Jacques," Quirrell said, "and all will become clear."

Another pause, then the man was off. Danny watched him disappear into a dark corridor, like he had suddenly become part of the shadows. Then he blinked, looked around. Had someone turned off the light? He could have sworn there had just been some nice, nice daylight…

Suddenly, it felt like his head had been hammered by a thousand bricks. Clarity returned, cold and sharp and unforgiving. He whirled around, to face Quirrell, wide-eyed. His face formed into a snarl. "You – "

"Listen," Quirrell said, suddenly eye level with him, hands on his shoulders. Danny wanted to recoil, but found himself almost paralyzed, unwillingly meeting the man's eyes. "This is an important meeting. I confounded you so that I would not betray the location of these people. Please understand."

Fear beat in his heart. "I- I understand," he said thickly, then took a step back. No magic. His paralysis was just fear.

He looked around. The darkness, the newness and claustrophobia of this place, compared to the vast green fields and rubble-strewn ruins they had been in the past few weeks, didn't help him any. Where had Quirrell brought him? Who were they meeting?

He turned around, but didn't see a door. He could have sworn, in his hazy memory, there had been a door. And, and an angry man! Could he ask for help here?

Hope was starting to swell in his breast, but it was vanished when he caught sight of Quirrell muttering a spell under his breath. He recognized it, as the spell Quirrell had cast oh so long ago to summon the ghost, when he, Harry, and Hermione had been stuck under the invisibility cloak inside Quirrell's office. When Quirrell had just been a scary and suspicious professor to stay away from.

Quirrell stopped before completing it, left the last words unsaid, but it left Danny on edge. Why now? Why was he casting it now? What was going to happen?

"Master Engrits," a rough voice announced to his right, and Danny whirled to face it. There were two figures, one whose silhouette matched that perfectly of a typical wizard, if stout, the other tall and lean and elegant. "We are both ready for an explanation, now, Quirinus," the same voice, the thick man with a monocle and wide-brimmed wizard hat, continued sternly.

"Yes, indeed," the tall and elegant figure said, wisping their wand in a quick piruette motion, wordless magic. A thick, hazy globe of light illuminated the air, casting the room in a stark yellow light. Startled, Danny's eyes caught on the tall stacks of books. Books? he wondered.

Then he looked at the two men, squinted. Was one of them the angry man, at the door? Would they help him? They were barely looking at him.

Danny, for the thousandth time, again suddenly felt very small and fragile and weak.

"Very well," Quirell said from beside him, and Danny stepped away from the man, wanting to put some distance between them. Quirrell didn't let him, calmly grabbed on to his sleeve, looking down upon him almost expressionlessly. "This is Danny Fenton."

"I knew it," the portly man groaned. "I never should've –"

"Quiet," the other one hissed. She then continued, "I doubt Quirrell would have so foolishly come here after committing such an egregious crime. To turn up like a puppy wet behind the ears, cowering at the trouble he inadvertently got himself in, at the only home he's known years later without recompense, hmm?"

Danny, wide-eyed, looked between Quirrell and this strange figure.

Quirrell actually looked chagrined.

It made it harder to hate the man, seeing this. Danny hated that, suddenly. He didn't want to see this. He just wanted to leave.

With a cry, he dashed towards the wall, where he thought the wall was, but Quirrell held onto his sleeve too tight. He couldn't escape. He kicked his legs ineffectually against the concrete, but all he did was make a fool out of himself.

"Explain," the woman cut again.

"Master Engrits," Quirrell began, some struggle in his voice as Danny worked to draw attention to the wrongness of this all. "This boy holds the secret to eternal life."

That silenced them, in a way that only the wordless could settle into. A deeper, stunned silence than the mere lack of words alone.

"... Are you serious?" Engrits said. Danny chanced a glance at her, heart sinking with a hefty suspicion at the tone. He saw a glint in her eyes he didn't like, in this hazy, dusty room, and knew, with sudden certainty, that this person would not help him.

"Yes," Quirrell said. "Ectoplasm."

The woman's eyebrows raised. "This boy?" she asked, though she sounded intruiged. "How?"

Quirrell, somewhat smugly, completed the last words of the ghost-summoning spell.

Within instants, the room was all cold. The yellow cast of the room turned green, a luminescent, acid, eerie green. Danny felt a call, and shivered.

iM HeRE, the ghost said triumphantly. Danny felt it's eyeless gaze turn to him, and shivered. itS TiMe? it asked.

"No, not yet," Quirrell said sharply. It was the first time Danny had heard anyone other than him speak to the ghost directly. He hadn't even known that other people could hear it. "This is a demonstration, only."

A scoffing sensation from the ghost. For some reason, it startled Danny, like it was something new. Was it? He couldn't remember.

"An ectoplasmic ghost," the woman's voice was filled with awe. "This could – all the research that could be done, all the cures – "

"Magic at its most potent," Quirrell affirmed with a smile.

"What does this have to do with the boy?" a rough voice spat, the portly man with the wizard hat and monocle.

Danny suddenly found his voice, carefully looking away from the ghost and only at the man, tugging away from the grip on his sleeve.

"Please, he kidnapped me, you have to help me escape, I –"

"Listen, boy," the woman said sharply, "if you have any sympathy within you, you will sit right there and listen. Need I explain what this kind of discovery means? Oh, of course I do. They wouldn't teach this sort of thing in Hogwarts." She said it almost with disdain. "Kindergarteners. Really, it's primitive. Ectoplasm has been found to be an extremely powerful sort of magic – wild, untamed, like the Dark Arts. A kind of magic that can accomplish unimaginable feats, defying the nexus between life and death. It has even been speculated that ectoplasm is the source of magic, so powerful it is. And can't you see what that means, child? Loved ones, thought to be gone forever, returned to life once more! The least of it is immortality. If only we could study it…" She sounded hungry.

Danny huddled deeper within himself, scrunching his shoulders up. It felt like someone had just taken his worldview, stretched it topsy turvy, and then smashed it with a hammer for good measure.

If I have any sympathy?

He had just been kidnapped! Why wasn't, anyone doing anything?

The ghost flared. SToP, it screamed. It angrily blared at the woman, floating over to her, raising a glowing appendage as if to attack –

"Remember the contract," Quirrell said sharply, voice alarmed.

The ghost stopped. Another scoff. Danny almost imagined it stomping its foot petulantly, before shaking away the bizarre image.

"Well, I'm impressed," Engrits said, recovering herself a moment later. "You have this thing under a contract?"

Quirrell smiled tightly. "Yes."

There was a pause, in which it was made clear that Quirrell would not volunteer any more information.

"Well then," Engrits said, raising her eyebrow. "Keep your secrets, then. It is our way, after all. But then, what brings you here? Would one with such an established prize require our services?"

"Yes, Master Engrits," Quirrell said, the tight smile never disappearing. "If you haven't noticed, I have been living on the run. My prize, as you say, has had a cost. I require tools."

"Very well," the woman said sharply, "I want access to your research. 50 percent of credit for your findings – and full access to the results as well."

"Fifty percent?" Quirrell's tone said the price was almost laughable. "With having done none of the research or obtainment yourself?"

"It's only fair," she said, smiling shark teeth. "You are a wanted man, after all. You have no other option."

Quirell stared at her for a long moment, and her at him. The glow of the ghost painted both their faces green.

"Very well," he said finally, as if it pained him. Then, "Where are the labs?"

"Why in such a hurry?" she taunted. "After all," she said, eyes flickering to Danny, almost warily, "I assume that as long as you have the boy, you have the ghost."

The thin smile was back. "Well inferred, Master Engrits."

"Then," she said, eyes sharp, flitting from Quirrell, to the ghost, to Danny. "Let's make them feel welcome."

.

.

.

What followed next was the most depressingly bizarre series of events Danny had yet to experience. He was led by the woman, Engrits, hand clutched in her oily, tight claws, into a larger room behind the entrance they had stood in. There, she had given him to a mousy-looking boy who must've been several years older than Danng, and ordered him to to wash, scrub, and find a room – the most luxurious room, she said with a cold smile – for Danny. The boy had immediately looked at Danny distrustfully, almost scornfully, then had gotten immediately to his task, dumping Danny into a nearby wash basin despite his great protests. The result was a furious Quirrell, who was upset at having lost sight of Danny, a newly washed, grime-free Danny, who upsettingly felt a thousand times better at just being clean, and… a strangely distrustful scowling boy who led him and Quirrell down a long, narrow hallway to their new room.

Which was, in one way to put it, luxurious. The room must've been at least ten yards long, purple velvet curtains everywhere, plush pillows. Lofty paintings filled the walls, detailing expansive and wonderous magical sights – unicorns, dragons, pegasi. There, again, were no windows.

Danny hated it.

He yanked his arm from the boy's and said, in his most rude tone possible, "What are you doing here anyway?"

The mousy boy looked deeply offended, posturing and setting his nose into the air. It had the overall effect of making the two-heads height he had on Danny even more excasberated, and doubly made it clear that he was looking down on Danny.

"Studying," he said, in the most lofty voice possible, then walked away, slamming the door shut after him after shooting Danny and Quirrell both a distrustful look.

Danny in turn set his most angry and frustrated look on Quirrell. "What is this place!?" he demanded, shaking an ineffectual fist. "Why won't anyone let me go home?"

Quirrell looked down at him cooly. Then he sighed, falling onto a purple cushioned bench.

"They're the Truthseekers," he said dully. "They raised me. Of course they wouldn't have let you go home."

Danny blinked, again startled from his anger.

"They raised you? But I thought you, went to, Hogwarts?"

Danny had started thinking this was some weird, twisted, evil alternative version of school.

Quirrell shrugged. It seemed a strange motion on the man. "I did. I had wanted to go for years, and kept asking until they gave it to me." His lips twitched into a half-smile. "Those years were good, though they always told me I never learned as much as if I'd stayed with them." His eyes suddenly turned regretful, and he looked as if he were peering into a great distance. "Perhaps I should have kept better with my friends from those years. Maybe things would have turned out differently, then."

It again made Danny uncomfortable. He didn't want to see this side of Quirrell.

"Well," he asked petulantly, "why are you keeping me from my friends now?"

The man suddenly scowled, all sharp edges now.

"They weren't my friends," he said harshly now. "They just saw me as weak, timid. They couldn't understand. And they aren't your friends, either. They're all the same."

Danny looked at him, swallowed, backed away. He thought of the door, not for the first time. Maybe, he thought, this was finally his chance.

No, not yet, his mind cautioned him. Quirrell's attention, though haggard, was still on him. Quirrell would undoubtedly notice. When the man was sleeping. Surely, someone here would help him.

"They're not," he said stubbornly, continuing on the conversation. "They're not all the same. I don't know who your friends are, but…" He looked away. "It wasn't because we were different," Danny said.

Quirrell looked at him, astounded.

"It wasn't," Danny said. "I don't know why really, not yet – and maybe they were there, and I just brushed them off – I don't have my memories – but I think they're better people than that. I mean," he smiled shakily, "how can I call myself their friend if I don't believe in them more than that?"

Quirrell shook his head.

"You don't know," he said, "the ways of the world. How they will trick you, use you."

Danny scowled. "But they're not. They're like me. I don't want to trick, or use anyone. So why do you?" He had a flash of insight. "Because you're scared of them?"

"Stop it," he snapped. "Enough of this." He looked profoundly unhappy, squeezing his eyes shot, turban jostling as he shook his head back and forth. "I made the right choice."

Danny worried he had pushed too far. He didn't want the man to get more angry. He wanted the man to forget about him, so that he could slip away and escape.

When Quirrell looked at him bleary-eyed and barked at him to go to sleep, then, he counted it as a victory.

.

.

.

.

Later that night, when Danny was waiting for Quirrell to fall asleep, he thought over the day's conversations, tried to figure out what was going on.

Why hadn't Quirrell mentioned the Stone to them? He had thought they were there to make the Elixir of Life from the Stone.

Was Quirrell trying to trick them, the Truthseekers, too?

Danny could've kicked himself. He hadn't even thought of mentioning the Stone, or Voldemort, to ruin Quirrell's plans. Or had they already known? Quirrell at least had certainly been circumspect in not mentioning any of it.

He snuck a look at Quirrell. Finally fast asleep, but fitful. It was still the deepest sleep Danny had ever seen him in; on the road it had always seemed like he had one eye open. Good. It must have exhausted him now.

He decided that now was the time to enact his plan. Standing, quiet as a ghost, he tiptoed to the door, softly swinging it open – the hinges were apparently well oiled so it didn't squeak – and snuck out. It was almost too easy, but he didn't dare breathe a sigh of relief.

From there, things got more complicated. He didn't know where to go.

He ended up wandering the place, going down that narrow hallway, trying to retrace his steps. He couldn't do it. He then entered room after room, trying to get a hint of something –

– but the next door he opened revealed a light, a desk, and someone very obviously awake and working.

The mousy boy who had washed him that evening met his startled eyes with his own. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "This area is off limits!"

Danny looked around. His heart was hammering, and he tried a weak smile.

"Is it? I didn't know. Can you show me the way out?"

The boy stared at him suspiciously, eyes narrowed, for a long moment. Then, finally, acqueiesing, he sighed. "Well, alright. But don't let me catch you here again, alright, newbie?" Then he grumbled, "don't know what got you Master Engrits favor," as he turned to pick up his nightlamp from the stand next to him.

Danny froze. He couldn't help it. He let out a weak laugh.

"You think I have her favor?"

One of the boy's eyebrows raised sky-high as he looked at him in an expression of disbelief. "Of course. You got the luxury rooms. No one gets those."

Danny frowned. "Listen – I don't want any of that. I've been – I've been – " his voice raised in pitch, "kidnapped! I never wanted to be here!"

Again, that eyebrow raise. "Aren't you being a little dramatic?"

Danny felt crushed. He was being dramatic? First he was told he had no sympathy, and now that he was being dramatic? About having been kidnapped?

"Look," the boy said, rolling his eyebrows. "The newbies here get it a lot, it's fine. First time I've ever had to give this speech, but it's fine, I'm fine. I'll try my best, whatever." He took a deep breath, during which Danny took the time to feel somewhat bewildered. "I don't know what kind of fucked up situation they got you out of, or what your family was like, whatever," he said the words with such a droll tone it was almost incredible. "But trust me, they are trying to help. This is a good place. You will learn a lot. Perform well, and you'll get rewards. It's a new home, and all that."

He raised an eyebrow, looked at Danny, and, incredibly, bizarrely, dizzyingly, then said, "You good now?"

Danny let out another weak laugh.

"Y-you actually don't understand. I'm not, I'm not, what helped? I was actually taken away from my home against my will. I go to Hogwarts, not, whatever this place is."

The boy's eyes widened, and for the first time, an expression other than distrust, a sense of weary pain for life, or boredom flashed across his face.

"You – you go to Hogwarts?"

Understanding was finally blooming on his face.

"And I was kidnapped! By Quirrell!"

"Who?"

"The man who was with me. You know, with the turban."

"Oh, with the turban."

He nodded almost knowingly, but his expression was almost dazed. He cleared his throat, then said, "Well, you're a tiny heck of a squirt, aren't you?"

Danny squeezed his eyes shut. What does that have to do with anything? "What does that have to do with anything?" he asked, voice strained, when he was sure he wouldn't yell the words.

"Oh, well, I suppose, nothing. Just thought that you wouldn't be old enough yet, for well," he cleared his throat again. "Hogwarts. Um, so you were actually kidnapped?"

"Yes."

"Like, actually?"

"Yes!" Danny could've thrown his hands in the air, he was so exasperated. Actually, he went ahead and did that, because what the heck.

"Does Master Engrits know about this?"

Danny turned wide, panicked eyes onto the boy

"She's not going to help me. She, she had this look in her eyes – "

"Woah, okay, I get it." He put his hands in front of him as if to ward Danny off. "No telling her. What about, hmm." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, what do you want me to actually do about this?"

Danny really could've screamed. "Help me escape," he said, with all the patience he could muster. Was this guy an idiot?

"Well, don't take that tone with me. Helping you escape is a lot of effort, you know. Could get me into a lot of trouble. What'd you get kidnapped for?"

Goddamn it, this guy.

"I don't know," Danny said, through his teeth. "Do you question every person that's in a bad situation before you start helping them?"

The boy was silent for a long time, as if thinking it over.

"Yes."

Danny stared at him incredulously. The older boy stared back, unbothered. Then the boy grinned, shrugging, "Well, if anybody felt how you look when I did that, no wonder Chelsa never would go out with me."

That was it. That was the final straw. Danny had wasted too much time on this stupidity. He would escape himself.

He turned around, stomped his feet out the library (all the rooms were goddamn libraries, weren't they?) exit. Heck if Quirrell would find him. Heck if he got, who knows, swallowed by that ghost. Heck if "Master Engrits" found him and slapped him silly. Fuck this. Fuck all this. He didn't, shouldn't, have to deal with all of this.

"Wait!" The boy had run after him, nightlamp swinging wildly in the motion. "Wait up. Okay, I'll help you. I just need to understand what the stakes are." Seeing he had finally caught Danny's attention, the boy looked at him earnestly. "You promise there's not some super special reason you were kidnapped?"

Danny looked at him flatly. "No."

The boy squinted at him. "Are you sure? Because if you're just saying that, this will get me into loads, and I mean loads of trouble."

Danny hesitated, almost lied, then looked away, not finding it within himself to do it even to this boy, whose "loads of trouble" probably were skim milk compared to Danny's. "Well, there's this ghost."

Sky-high eyebrows were somehow conveyed even in his tone of voice. "This ghost?"

"Yeah," Danny scowled. "It keeps following me."

"Okay?" The boy sounded confused. "Aaaand… what's so special about this ghost?"

After a moment, Danny managed to grit it out, sure that this would ruin his hope of help from the obstinate, obfuscatious boy. "It's an ectoplasmic ghost."

"Oooh," the boy said knowingly. Then, "Wait. I don't get it."

Danny found that it was his turn to now raise an incredulous eyebrow.

"You don't?" he asked.

"I don't," the boy affirmed. "No clue."

Danny sighed. It had already been a long night. Far, far too long. "So, will you help?"

The boy frowned. "Wellll, I'm not sure. If it were something I knew about, but this might be a high-class secret…."

"Please help me."

Danny turned his best pleading-eye expression on him, the one that would even make Jazz cave in the most serious moments.

It worked like a charm.

"Ah, okay, okay!" The boy held his arms in front of him again, looking uncomfortable. "Just don't, uh, look at me like that." He took a step in front of Danny, out into the hallway proper, then looked back at Danny with an authoritative expression. "Don't worry, just follow me. I'll get you out of here."

Despite himself, Danny smiled. "Right. I'm counting on you."

That made the boy's chest puff out proudly, though for some reason he looked intensely uncomfortable at the same time. Regardless of his painful-to-watch body-expression conflict, he soon showed himself to be surprisingly good at sneaking around, slinking around corners, beckoning to Danny with his hand at appropriate times to follow after he had scoped out a place.

Finally, he stopped in a larger room, filled with stacks of books and dusty red-black countertops. Danny vaguely recognized it as the entrance room to the building, where Quirrell and him had first come in.

"Here is," the boy said dramatically, thrusting his arms out in the direction of a wall, "the door."

Danny looked at it flatly. "The door."

"Yeah," he smiled. "Guess you can't see it then. That's in-line with your story. We got it enchanted so that only those in our order can see it." He looked sad, abruptly. "Guess you're really not in our order, after all."

Danny looked at him like he was insane. "You wanted me to be?"

He grinned sheepishly. "Guess you're a cute cherub, once I realized that you weren't outcompeting me, or anything. It'd be good to have another friend, you know, a real one. Like a little brother"

"... Right."

"Anyhow. I guess this is it."

He stared at Danny soulfully.

"Can you, I don't know, just open the door?"

"What? Oh, yes."

He scrambled to his feet, went to the pitch blackness that was a wall, did something, and suddenly light was streaming in.

Danny savored it. It looked like freedom.

Then he could have kicked himself. He looked at the boy. "Um, do you know where we are? Like, what country?"

The boy frowned. "Can't tell you that. But don't worry, the door's auto-spelled to deposit you anywhere randomly in the world so no one can track you."

… great.

"But don't worry," the boy said, almost cheerfully. "It's really not a problem when you can apparate."

"I can't apparate."

"Oh, um, well." The boy shrugged sheepishly. "Good luck?"

"I guess it's better than nothing." Danny looked around then, at that light, suddenly amazed that this was it. He was really escaping. He looked at the boy, sudden gratitude welling within him, as he stepped towards that glorious light. "Hey, er, thanks. Really. I appreciate it."

"Yeah." The boy smiled, blindingly bright.

"What's, um, your name?"

"Mallock," the boy said brightly, nodding enthusiastically. "What's yours?"

"Danny." He stepped another inch towards the door. "Well, thanks, Mallock. I hope… that I'll see you again, in better circumstances."

It hit him. He'd probably never see this boy again. He was stepping out of a spelled door that would take him anywhere.

Did it really matter? he wondered. He had only known this boy for a day. And he was really a special kind of idiot, too.

"You… wouldn't want to come with me, would you?" Danny asked, tentatively.

The boy's eyes shined. Danny could've sworn he saw tears, and it was confirmed when the boy – Mallock – actually wiped them away with the sleeve of his hand. "No," he said, emphatically. "You go on without me. I'll be strong."

"Right, well." Danny took a deep breath. "Well-it-was-nice-meeting-you-Mallock-and-thanks-for-everything-bye!" and he hopped through the door, into the light, a spinning sensation took over him, and he was suddenly skidding through dirt, feeling dizzy, landing face first.

Despite the pain, his thoughts were giddy.

I'm free! He thought, grinning as he stood up to his feet. I'm free! I'm really free!

Once his thoughts became far too redundant for his liking and his excitement began to wear thin, he turned his attention to the next problem: where the heck was he?

In the distance, a cow moo'd.

Oh, great.

.

.

.

Weird A/N:

Portly man with monocle: "How dare you, Mallock!" *gives the boy a nudgie* "I was going to save him! I had such good character set up for it too, damn, going silent all like that in the room. You think I really would've gone silent when I see a kid being mistreated like that? Damn, this order's gone downhill since Engrits grew up and became a, ehm, female dog."

Mallock: "But – he was, so normal. I've never even seen someone so normal like that! We're all like, super backstabbing and competitive here. When he stared at me with those soulful eyes, I just couldn't help but want to – oh, what am I saying, nevermind." (Is embarrased). "Well, I helped him, so that's that."

Author: Goddamned it, why did I type this all from like 1am to 5am at night when I was supposed to be fixing my sleep schedule and not waking up at 5pm. Goddamnit. Why am I like this? And it probably has a ton of typos too, but goddamnit I don't care, I'm still posting this right now, and also I'm allowed to curse and act grumpy at 6am that's just in the rules of life.

Okay, anyway, I hope you enjoyed this weird and Very Different Episode of Dragon Ball Z. Oh wait, I mean Growing Up. Should be called "What the heck am I doing trying to grow up but not really". Yeah, that's a much better title.

Alright, kudos, folks. Keep living your life good and all that.