The Fates Are Plotting Against Me

A state of well-being and contentment; a pleasurable or satisfying experience; felicity. Various dictionary definitions of happiness.

Reid himself didn’t put much stock by the emotion. That could be attributed to the fact that he had felt mere whispers of the emotion over the past five years. Well-being….pshh. That was a rare commodity for a Mudblood in Durmstrang. Pleasure was short-lived, going against the very concept of ‘happiness’. Satisfaction or contentment was a mere illusion for those poor, unambitious souls who could find nothing better to do with their lives. That being said, Reid wasn’t all for the over-ambitious either, trying desperately hard for something not worth the effort, and feeling all hollow after attaining it. The entire thing was a big, long drag. Why bloody bother?

All in all, one of his somewhat-liked French writers, Gustave Flaubert, had the right idea: To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

Reid had felt triumphant, smug, superficially pleased at achievements, perennially amused at the expense of others etc etc over the years. He had never degraded himself to being happy.
His hand tightened around the phial gripped between his long fingers. The entire thing was stoppered, under a Stasis charm, and was his cumulative work over the last six months. The potion was supposed to mimic the effects of Legilimency, and spread by inhaling fumes; one could glimpse the thoughts of the other without the years of practice that the Mind Arts took. At least, that was the aim. He wasn’t fooling himself by thinking that it would actually work, but being on the right track was important.

He was strolling through the fourth floor corridors, this time in all black Muggle attire, with his Bulgarian tee gleaming dark indigo under the right lighting. Enterprising, wannabe-cool boys glared, girls giggled and fluttered lashes, most just stared outright, as befuddled by his inexplicable experience in Hogwarts as always; general Brit behavior. But little could spoil his mood. He was…..pleased. He was heading to the RoR, the only decent room in the entire castle, where he could test his concoction, and make modifications if required.

He brew not for publishing his name in Potions journals, or earning money, or praise. He brew for pleasure, for the sheer desire of exercising his mental faculties and triumphing over theoretical obstacles. For the wish of achievement, for the sake of achievement. So he wasn’t happy, but pleased.

But clearly, Fate was out to ruin every single remotely non-negative emotion he ever possessed. She had always been this way. He shouldn’t have been surprised.

Two third-years were dueling on the corridor outside the library, that was what Reid’s mind registered in the first second. In the second, a strangely orange light shot out from the first kid’s wand, narrowly missed the second…..and with horrible slow-motion, impacted his vial of potion.

Immediate explosion. Reid was flung back against the wall, his legs and arms immediately crouching into a ball in order to attain minimum damage. Still his spine hit the cold stone with remarkable strength, and he crumpled; less out of the force and more from a strangely acidic stench that scoured his nostrils and lungs and shit, the potion.

Dimly, he opened his eyes despite the almost clawing sensation in his eyelids; he hated feeling incapacitated or handicapped in anyway. He registered someone breathing next to him. He turned his head, neck propped against the wall and aching….and saw……

Himself.

It was not, of course, the first time Addie had been headed down to the library in her time at Hogwarts. She was, obviously, the type to feel the need to fill her mind with everything from wizarding homework to Muggle stories. On one such day, Adrienne had a couple books in her arms as she made her way down from the Ravenclaw tower and through the halls of Hogwarts.

School wasn't all too fully in swing just yet, but she had NEWTs coming up that year, and she wasn't about to waste the time she had before homework piled up sitting around and doing nothing. Call her a loner, but it wasn't something she felt too badly about. It was just how she was. If she planned on doing something with her life after Hogwarts, she had to know exactly what she wanted to do.

That said, her day was supposed to be spent in the library, looking through books about her class textbooks and whatnot. Come a few weeks later, she would undoubtedly be swamped in the marriage law mess as much as classes, and Addie saw no need to make her life harder than it would be.

All she had been thinking about lately was when her meeting would be, and who she would be matched with. This thought distracted her the entire time she walked through the halls. Knowing that the moment she walked through the doors to the library, she could force herself to focus, she didn't mind letting herself trail off into other areas of thought along the way.

Turning a corner, she saw two seemingly insane students dueling in front of the entrance. One cast a spell she didn't hear so much as see coming towards her and a boy a bit ahead of her. The spell knocked right into whatever he was holding, and Adrienne watched with dread as it exploded. Ducking, she braced herself as she was knocked backwards into the wall.

Breathing heavily, Addie registered feeling an ache in her head. Tilting her head to the side, Adrienne grimaced. She lifted a hand to check the back of her head for a bump of some kind, and gasped loudly. Where was her hair, exactly? Her eyes opened and she found herself staring at where exactly her hair was. On her head. So why, exactly, was she not herself?

((OOC: Gah, I love you guys. What house did Reid get sorted into, anyway?))

Vivianna was irritated. No, she was angry. Actually, scratch all that, she was outraged. Reid Dixon was at Hogwarts. Reid Dixon. It wasn't enough for the male to have intruded upon her holiday, no, now he had to settle himself down on her turf. Her turf.

Now, that wasn't to say that she ruled the school or anything as ridiculous and cliché as that. But Vivianna did hold power over far more of the school than most students either realized or wanted to accept. While she might've been considered something of a loner within her dorm, practically every member of the serpent house respected her for something or another. Beyond that, a good half of her house and a good handful of students from the others owed her a favor or two. Stretching beyond even that, was her metal collection of blackmail. To put it simply, she had plenty of connections.

But now Reid Dixon was at Hogwarts. In her safe-place. While most students would hardly consider the castle of a school completely safe, Vivianna had always been something of an odd duck. The relative feeling of safety spawned from the knowledge that wherever she was in the grounds, whomever she met, the Slytherin always knew how to dominate or get out of basically any situation. Trust Reid bloody Dixon to screw that up. The redhead found herself wondering absently if Erika knew about her brothers attendance yet.

Rounding the corner, the witch immediately spotted two students laying on the stone floor, almost looking as if they'd been knocked over by something. Upon registering the identities of those two students, Vivianna's lips twisted into a sneer. Observant eyes zoning in on a shattered potions vial, the Slytherin felt her lips curling even further.

Walking over to the bottom half of the vial laying next to Reid, because of course it was the idiot's fault, the redhead carefully picked it up. Bringing the broken glass to her nose, the witch inhaled, attempting to smell what the vial had contained. Not recognizing the sent, Vivianna inhaled again. Tilting her head to the side slightly, the potions inventor noted the sent of a few ingredients that were normally never mixed. And for a good reason.

Rolling her eyes, Vivianna let out a low sigh, Dixon would be stupid enough to illegally brew experimental potions. After all, even she blew stuff up more often than not, and she was more knowledgeable than her Potions Professor.

Turning to the body of Reid Dixon, the Slytherin placed her let hand on her hip. "You complete and utter idiot," she announced, not hiding her contempt, "do you really think you're smart enough to brew experimental draughts? Hell, with the ingredients you put in this thing, you could be brain-dead and I might be screaming at a vegetable. Asphodel, slothbrain, and moondew? Imbicile." The last word was muttered under her breath, and spat out like an unforgivable curse.

((OOC: XDD <3 ))

Addie tested the feel of the back of her head, not finding a significant bump to worry about. Though, it wasn't exactly her head, was it? Frowning, she was turning her head to look at the rest of her - was it hers? - body when a figure rounded the corner. She recognized the Slytherin from classes and the brief trip to Greece over the summer. Unfortunately, Reid had ended up on that mess of a trip as well.

Vivianna picked something up - something that looked like a nearly-shattered vial from Potions class - and seemed to test it. Adrienne made a mental note to spend more time on Potions, for she undoubtedly wouldn't know what Reid had been carrying.

Suddenly, the girl standing over them turned to Adrienne and essentially started yelling at her. Why would someone who had seemed rather civil over the summer suddenly become so cold and aggressive? Eyebrows raised, she forced herself to sit up more properly.

"What are you on about? I've done nothing!" She questioned, gasping and covering her mouth after hearing the voice that came from her mouth. Addie's eyes were likely wide as she stared at the feet extended in front of her. Those weren't hers, either. This had to be a sick joke or an awful nightmare. Something entirely more normal than being trapped in the body of someone else.

Addie had only ever heard rumors about something like this - and she had hoped they were just that. Rumors. Apparently, this was not the case.

She turned to glare darkly at.. herself? Reid? Whomever - and narrowed her eyes. "What the bloody hell did you do?" Not normally one to curse, she didn't exactly care right then, when her body wasn't her own. What had his stupid potion done, anyways? Made them switch minds? That made no sense at all.

Imagining she looked about as ridiculous as she sounded, Addie groaned and ran a hand over her face. This was a complete and utter mess. She could only hope there was some sort of miraculous potion or spell that could reverse the effects.

Reid had never been more bloody disoriented in his life.

In the first second, he had been pondering on the possible modifications to the potion. In the next, he was blasted to the floor and woke with a throbbing head, an acrid stench up his nose, and something tickling the back of his neck. In the third, he watched (admittedly, rather shell-shocked) as Varnes strode up the corridor and proceeded to thoroughly insult himself, who currently sat squat on the floor, mouth covered by hand in a silent gasp, face plastered with an expression that he wished he could exterminate from his memory forever. His face had not just looked like that.

Of course, Reid didn’t make a habit of staying in the stunned state. It proved to be rather harmful to one’s well-being. Mind efficiently shoving all other things to the back of his head, shock included, directing focus and attention to the matter at hand; he snapped a finger (long-nailed, crap) and Conjured a mirror. Dark, long-lashed eyes blinked back at him.

Despite his earlier decision, his mind proceeded to be in shock for two additional seconds. Considering the following three facts, Reid believed it was rather justified.

a) He wasn’t himself.

b) He was a girl.

c) He was the friggin’ I’m-the-queen-of-the-world Piss Princess.

Addendum: The Piss Princess was him.

Right. So the itching sensation was the hair.

“If you would use a fraction more of your brain, and your eyes instead of your nose, you would realize that bloody baneflower has been added to stabilize the ingredients. It was the frickin’ spell’s fault.” The words escaped his lips like flecks of foaming venom. And it was high-pitched. And squeaked. Merlin. By the time he was done with that third year, he would be begging for death. Provided he didn’t rip out his vocal cords first. Or his neck.

Of course, some people simply refused to see the obvious, and turned towards him, and Christ, Reid felt equal to leaping out of the topmost floor of the Astronomy Tower, but never, never being subjected to the torture of seeing his features twisted into an expression of such gormless idiocy. He raised an eyebrow, narrowed his pupils at Reynolds in a universal sign of play along or I’ll masticate your jugular and then turned towards Varnes, fluttering his eyelashes (die, die now) in a hopefully passable imitation of the idiotic girl. “Oh no, it was me.” He drawled sweetly. “Stupid, brainless bimbette me who clearly has nothing to do except ruin people’s lives. Sorreee.”

He got up, dusted his….. (no, ripping the neck was too less, he would bloody CRUMBLE every bone in the guy’s body) skirt, then smiled in a smile that was more of a grimace, voice with a sharp, culturedly vicious edge that would never leave Reid Dixon’s voice, girl pitched or no. “Though apparently, you seem to be pretty imbecilic yourself, seeing you inhaled the fumes of an unknown concoction without knowing whether it spread that way or no. I would suggest you to avoid physical contact with anyone.” The grimace grew saccharine sweet. “Just saying.”

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Reid was being... un-Reid-like. And Addie was acting like an overly-sarcastic b!tch. If the situation hadn't been so baffling, the witch probably would have burst out laughing upon hearing such un-Addie-like things coming from the Ravenclaw's mouth.

If it was anyone but these two, the Slytherin would have accused them of playing a joke on her. But upon considering who this was, Vivianna immediately rejected the idea. Addie hated Reid almost as much as she did, and the broken vial spoke for itself.

Mentally running through all the ingredients she could identify, Vivianna only became further confused. There was nothing identifiable in the potion that could have altered or influenced Addie's personality. And Reid, well, she didn't even want to think about Reid. There was something so unnatural about seeing the usually-composed male so... not.

Brought back to square one, Vivianna decided to ignore the situation, and pay attention to what the ingredients could tell her. On the topic of ignoring, Vivianna also completely ignored the insult to her potions knowledge that had spilled form Addie's mouth.

From the moment she'd rounded the corner, the witch had noticed the faint smell of asphodel in the air. Taking into account that broken-down asphodel looses potency very quickly once exposed to oxygen, one of the many reasons why vials are air-tight, the fumes she inhaled were perfectly safe. Not that she would say that, people knew she was good at potions, but few knew just how good.

"Asphodel, moondew, sloth brain, baneflower," Vivianna muttered under her breath, trying to figure out what those ingredients would create once mixed together. Eyes narrowed on Addie's face, the Slytherin suddenly inhaled sharply in realization.

Turning to Reid's body, the redhead twisted her lips into an apologetic smile, "sorry about that Addie." Turning back to Reid-in-Addie's-body, the girl tilted her head to the side, a neutral expression on her face. "You make a really bad Adrienne, just so you know," she stated bluntly.

Looking up towards the celling like she was stretching her neck, the sixth year let out a sigh and asked, "what shattered the vial?" in a tone so resigned it was almost monotone. Internally, Vivianna began to ponder if a condescendingly sneering Addie, or an openly-emotional Reid was more scarring.