Klaine Advent 2018 Day 16: Pledge

Dimension fourteen: Carry On

Rachel is singing Christmas carols at seven in the morning. Kurt throws his pillow at her.

Rachel huffs. “Well, well, well, if you don’t want to appreciate my talent, I’ll sneak into another dorm room.”

She has an English accent. Is he back at Hogwarts?

Kurt opens his eyes and Rachel is sitting on a bed. He looks around. Rachel is right. They’re in some kind of dorm room. There are two beds, a desk underneath the window, and two dressers. There’s also a small doorway to another room and Kurt assumes it’s the bathroom, because he can hear a shower running.

Kurt has absolutely no idea where he is. It looks like he’s once again in a setting of a movie or something, like the The Good Place or Harry Potter, but Kurt doesn’t recognise it. Just like The Good Place, Kurt hopes he’ll figure it out soon.

The two words were ‘Carry On’. What does that even mean?

Rachel crosses her arms. “Get ready, Kurt, breakfast’s soon.”

Rachel jumps off the bed and Kurt can see that she’s wearing a uniform. There’s a red jumper underneath a green blazer with white piping. She’s wearing a grey ruffled skirt, some white stockings, and very fancy shoes. Apart from the blazer, she looks like she came straight out of sophomore year of high school.

Whoever’s in the shower is done showering and Kurt takes that as a cue to shower. He looks around in his wardrobe and sure, there’s some fabulous clothing in it, but he guesses he has to settle for the awful uniform.

To his surprise, Mike leaves the bathroom. He’s rooming with Mike!

“Your turn,” he says. He also sounds British. Kurt’s absolutely sure that he will sound British as well. Just like Rachel, Mike’s wearing the uniform. It’s the same uniform as Rachel, except he’s wearing trousers and he also has a cape. Kurt thinks the cape is quite fabulous and he’s happy to see that he owns one as well.

He quickly showers and gets dressed. It’s time to face this dimension.

When he returns, Mike and Rachel are discussing Rachel sneaking into their dorm room.

“You will never figure out how I broke the gender barriers, Michael!” Rachel says proudly, “Mummers House is mine!”

“Oh come on, you know I want to see Tina more often in the Cloisters,” Mike says back, “Just tell me how you do it.”

Rachel shakes her head. “Never.”

Getting information without sounding suspicious is difficult, but Kurt manages to find out that he’s in another magical boarding school. It is named Watford and it’s home to the most powerful mages. Magic (or magick) works differently here. For instance, Kurt doesn’t own a wand. He owns a magickal bracelet. There are people who use wands, but it’s not a necessity.

Another difference is that spells are in English and not in Latin. Whoever created this dimension most love linguistics, because all magick is based on words and free speech.

There’s also another thing that Kurt’s noticed. There is some sense of magickal hierarchy and Kurt is not part of it. Neither are the other New Directions members.

There are a couple of mages who are part of the so-called Old Families. They have the power. Kurt thinks it’s a bit elitist, but it’s not his world. Luckily for him, Kurt’s not the only one who dislikes this power hierarchy.

At breakfast, Kurt sits with the other New Directions members, and they’re not very happy about the Old Families. Apparently, all the students belonging to the Old Families have a day off, because they need to go to some kind of Old Family meeting.

“They’re all hypocritical,” Mercedes says angrily, “They are elitist. Like, if you know them personally, some of them are pretty cool. For example, Trent Nixon? Nice bloke. David Thompson? Same. But their politics are just so small-minded.”

Trent and David are Warblers. Blaine is always found with The Warblers in these dimension. Blaine’s probably part of the Old Families, which would explain why Kurt hasn’t seen Blaine yet. He’s not at breakfast, because he’s not at school.

“You’d almost think that this guy who calls himself The Mage has a point,” Puck says before he takes a big bite out of his sweet cherry scone.

“Why did he start calling himself The Mage?” Santana rolls his eyes, “Everyone knows him as Gilbert the Lunatic anyway.”

Gilbert.

Kurt has to remember this.

“Look mates, I don’t fully agree with Gilbert or The Mage or whatever he wants to call himself either, but you’ve got to admit that the bloke has some points,” Mike shrugs with one shoulder and he pours himself more tea, “The World of Mages is unorganised. The Old Families have made power something you can inherit and it’s wrong. He can do us all a solid by getting rid of the power monopoly and then he can sod off.”

“I also can’t help but wonder why all the kids from the Old Families agree to this?”

“They’ve basically pledged their loyalties to their magickal heritage,” Tina says, “And they don’t question it. After all, they aren’t affected by the negative parts of it. They’re all gits.”

Rachel lets out a happy sigh. “The only good thing about the Old Family kids leaving for one day is that you can openly complain for once. Normally, they give you a stink-eye at least.”

Quinn nods and she turns to Kurt. “How about you? You’ve been silent all morning.”

“Oh, uhm…” Kurt looks around and he tries to come up with something. After all, he’s a NYADA student. He knows how to improvise. He’s done it several times in these past few dimensions. “I wonder what kind of things they’ll discuss during these Old Family meetings.”

Some laugh.

“Yeah, as if the Old Families are able of discussing things,” Sam says.

“They’re probably all holed up in The Anderson Mansion, drinking fine wine and eating delicious food, and pretending they’re working,” Brittany says, and Kurt’s never heard Brittany talk to fiercely.

Wait a second.

“The Anderson Mansion?”

“Obviously,” Artie says, “Where else would they go? From all the Old Families, The Andersons are the most influenceable.”

Unless Kurt’s wrong, Blaine is part of these Old Families, and Kurt now knows where to find him.

Watford has a library and Kurt finds some spell books. He knew the Harry Potter spells, but these are all new to him. He’s also looked around for the book, but it’s nowhere to be found.

To Kurt’s surprise, there are computers in the library. He finds the house of The Andersons on Google Maps and he figures out what public transport he has to take.

He goes back to his and Mike’s dorm room in Mummers House and he packs a bag. It’s going to be a long trip. It’s not hard to sneak out of the school. Just like the Hogwarts in the Harry Potter dimension, security is scarce. Kurt just hopes that the Kurt from this dimension will forgive him for cutting classes.

Kurt spends most of the train ride reading the spell books that he borrowed from the Watford library. He really likes how language plays a role in this dimension. There are TV quotes and song lyrics used as spells, but also simple phrases like Answer me become spells when you say them with magic.

He’d love to try some of the spells, but he’s surrounded by non-magickal people, or Normals, and even though mages and Normals aren’t segregated, Normals are unaware of magick.

After a long journey, he gets off at the nearest bus stop. It’s still a twenty minute walk to The Anderson Mansion.

It’s all worth it when Kurt first sets eyes on the building. For a moment, Kurt’s standing still, staring at it in awe. He’s seen loads of wonderful buildings in these past few days, but this one has to be one of the best. The Anderson Mansion looks like it comes straight from the Victorian ages.

He then realises that he hasn’t thought this through. What is he supposed to do now? Just knock?

Kurt doesn’t come up with another plan, so he uses one of the door knob knockers. A maid opens the door and she frowns when she sees him.

“Hello, who are you and do you have business here?” she asks somewhat rudely.

“Yeah, hi, I’m looking for Blaine Anderson? Is he here?”

“This is The Anderson Mansion,” the maid deadpans.

Kurt tries not to roll his eyes. “So he’s here. Can I see him?”

“I’m afraid young mister Anderson is busy right now,” the maid says and she starts to close the door. Extremely rude.

“I’m a friend from school and I’ve travelled all this way to see him!” Kurt says. He’s slowly losing his patience with this woman.

The maid eyes his Watford costume, but she still doesn’t seem happy. “All his friends are already here,” she says, “Now, please leave.”

“Tell him Kurt Hummel’s at the door.” Kurt pushes the door open.

The maid sighs in annoyance, but she realises that Kurt’s not leaving voluntarily. She holds up a finger in a ‘one moment’ way and she leaves. Kurt waits for a few seconds. The maid returns with Blaine in tow. He looks very fancy.

“Kurt!” he exclaims.

“Well hello, young master Anderson,” Kurt says teasingly.

“Please don’t call me that. In fact, I even keep telling Vera not to call me that,” Blaine says to the maid.

The maid, or Vera, shrugs. “It’s my duty.”

Vera still gives Kurt a nasty look, but she can’t be openly rude in front of Blaine. Kurt enjoys watching her fume silently. He doesn’t understand why Vera doesn’t like him, but he couldn’t care less.

Blaine dismisses her and he gestures towards Kurt to follow him upstairs.

“Where are we going?”

“My room.”

“Shouldn’t you be in a meeting?”

“They won’t miss me.”

Blaine’s room is, simply put, creepy. The Anderson Mansion looks like it comes out of the Victorian ages, but Blaine’s room looks like it comes from some sort of thriller novel. It’s dark and wooden and there are gargoyles carved in Blaine’s bed.

The room is huge. It even has its own living area, with a beautiful sofa in front of a fireplace. Kurt hears Blaine say “Some like it hot” and the fireplace is lit. Kurt can’t see Blaine’s magical object. Blaine turns around to face Kurt.

“Spells are really cool in this dimension,” he says.

Kurt nods in agreement.

“How did you find me?” Blaine asks, “I live here and I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”

Kurt tells Blaine everything he knows. He tells him about Watford and the Old Families and how Brittany and Artie mentioned The Anderson Mansion. He tells Blaine that he’s travelled for hours to get here, since Blaine isn’t at school.

He also tells Blaine about Gilbert the Lunatic, or The Mage. Blaine writes it down in the Sinnoh Region Guide Book.

“Yeah, the Old Families,” Blaine sighs and he closes the Sinnoh Region Guide Book, “It’s weird. All my friends are great lads but they’re also a bit pretentious in this dimension. I dunno what this whole Old Family bullshit is, but I was quite surprised to see Cooper and my dad. I haven’t seen dad in ages.”

“And your mother?”

Blaine shrugs nonchalantly, but Kurt knows better. “Mum’s not here. Looks like my parents got divorced in every dimension. Turns out mum didn’t like this whole Old Family agenda and neither do I. Today’s been weird. We’re all here for some sort of meeting, but we aren’t discussing a thing. We’re just having some sort of dinner party. I got out of school for it, but I wish I were in school. I dunno Watford, but it sure must beat listening to all of this crap. I haven’t even gotten the time to look for you or the book, cause everyone wants to talk about fancy schmancy things.”

“I’ve looked for the book at the Watford library, but I couldn’t find it,” Kurt says.

“Well, then it’s probably somewhere in the house.”

“In the house?”

“Yeah, apparently we have our own private library. I haven’t seen all of the house yet, since I’ve been busy and it’s huge, but the moment you arrived on my doorstep, I stopped caring about pleasing the Old Families. Again, they won’t miss me.”

“Then let’s look around!”

Blaine nods eagerly. Then he holds up a medallion and he says “Make a wish”.

The fireplace dies out.

Blaine has used a spell called “Be our guest” on Kurt, which makes it impossible for anyone to hurt Kurt while he’s here. Kurt thinks it’s a bit ridiculous, but according to Blaine, the Old Families don’t like people outside the Old Families very much.

While they walk around the gigantic house, Blaine tells Kurt about the medallion.

“So, I find out that we’re in another magical dimension, or magickal as they call it, and that I don’t own a wand. Instead, my magic gets channelled through this medallion. It’s supposed to hang around my neck, but the me from this dimension did not like that. Dunno why, though, but he added some sort of pocket to the sleeves of all his clothes, so that he could put the medallion in it.”

“The you from this dimension sounds very weird.”

Blaine nods in agreement.

“Since the book wanted our wands from the Harry Potter dimension, I am guessing it needs our magickal objects from this dimension.”

They walk around the house for a while but they eventually find the library. It’s not as big as the Watford library, but it’s still huge.

Blaine looks around in defeat. Not only is the library huge, but it’s also badly lit. This entire house has this weird gothic interior vibe going on, which apparently means that all rooms have to be badly lit. There is a spell called Let there be light, but it only turns on the existing lights, so it’s useless.

But Kurt’s spent hours reading spell books, so he knows what to do. He raises his arm with the bracelet and he says: “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

This is also how he managed to check the entire Watford library with ease.

As expected, the book comes flying out of one of the bookshelves.

“I love magick,” Blaine says when he watches how Kurt catches the book, “This spell is way more specific than accio, because you need the book title for accio.”

Kurt puts the book on a table and he flips it open to the right place. Blaine was right: the book clearly wants Kurt’s bracelet and Blaine’s medallion.

“Well, let’s do it before my dad comes looking for us,” Blaine says. He takes the medallion out of his sleeve and he puts it on the page. Kurt follows suit by putting his bracelet on the page.

“I am definitely going to miss this magick system, though,” he says sadly as he watches his bracelet disappear.

“Yeah, me too.”

Blaine flips the page and both Kurt and Blaine do a double take when they see the two new words.

‘Life swap’.