Quote:The story opens on Doug, Ron and Hermione, all crammed on his motorcycle, making a hasty near-crash-landing at Stonehenge, just about sunset.  "We've got to hurry," a teary-eyed Hermione urges, "it won't take them more than a few minutes to figure out where we are." 

Doug strides over to the Altar Stone.  "I just hope this works the same way the one back home does, or we're screwed."  His hands dance across the surface of the rock, and bursts of colored light flash under each touch.  "C'mon, c'mon..."

"What are you doing?" Hermione demands as a stoic Ron looks out into the fields surrounding them, his back to the setting sun. 

"Hermione," he says, "I think they're..."

The distinctive cracks of multiple Apparitions sound... just before Doug yahoos and the altar stone burns white -- and at the same moment a dome of shimmering blue light encloses the entire stone circle.

Hermione looks around with wide eyes at what can only be a forcefield -- and the furious Death Eaters just beyond it.  "What did you do?"

Doug grins.  "It accepted the admin id and password that I knew."

Hermione blinks.  "It what?"

Doug begins jogging from standing stone to standing stone, hands dancing over the rough surfaces and leaving pulsing traceries of multicolored light behind.  "Never mind.  You two, stay in the center of the circle with my bike.  It's going to be close... the dome has to come down before the circle can activate, and that'll give the baddies a very brief window.  I'm trying to make it as short as possible, but if I get it wrong the circle will just shut down instead of activating."  He ran to the next stone,

Hermione and Ron just watch the Death Eaters attacking the dome -- to their shock and gratification it even stops what look like the Unforgivables.   Then the crowd of Death Eaters parts, and Voldemort appears, to fling his own magic uselessly at the dome.  "Doug..."

"Almost...." he calls from the last standing stone.  "And... now!  Down!"  He hurls himself at the pair and they fall into an untidy heap as the dome drops and a barrage of hostile spells rocket through were they just were.  "Three..." Doug murmurs, "two...  one!"

And a whirlwind of power swirls into existence just inside the circumference of the bluestone horseshoe.  The Death Eaters are driven back by its immense power, which is as unperturbed for its brief lifespan as the dome was before it.

And when it vanishes, the circle is empty and dark.

One year earlier...

A whirlwind of power explodes into existence in Stonehenge, lasting just a moment before vanishing, leaving behind two students, a teacher, and an improbable motorcycle.

"What just happened?" Ron asks.

Doug grins as he helps them off the ground.  "What would you say if I told you that among the many other things Stonehenge was designed to do, it's a time machine?"

Hermione whirls on him.  "It's what?"

Doug grins wider.  "We've just gone back in time a year -- we now have the time and the intelligence to stop Voldemort and save Harry's life."

Quote:I looked at the guy with my face.  "Huh.  Well, can't say I haven't anticipated something like this."

He nodded.  "Right.  'Biff has the almanac.'"

I blinked and said, "'Oh, fuck.'"

He grinned.  "Code and countercode given and accepted."

Hermione -- his Hermione -- looked at us incredulously.  "You had a prearranged signal in case of this situation?"

Other-Doug looked smug.  "Hermione, in the circles I... we... travel in at home, the arrow of time is at most a general guideline instead of a natural law."

Quote:I then immediately figure out how to let a member of the DA do them instead.

Quote:Ah, the challenge of moving from player to GM.

Quote:As long as Doug gets some of the awesome.

Quote:Hermione is... well, Hermione cubed

vorticity Wrote:

Quote:Hermione is... well, Hermione cubed

This sounds a lot like me getting three Hermiones to ship.

Dartz Wrote:Microsoft Spellmaker??

Or what happens when the Borg assimilate the Necronomicon.

(02-04-2017, 03:00 AM)robkelk Wrote:

Dartz wrote: Wrote:Microsoft Spellmaker??

Or what happens when the Borg assimilate the Necronomicon.

In Warriors' World, they know the difference between a spellchecker and a spelling checker.

(12-04-2017, 06:39 PM)ECSNorway Wrote: Something tells me Doug would get along well in the universe of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousai -- aka "The Irregular At Magic High School"

(11-13-2020, 09:19 PM)classicdrogn Wrote:

(12-04-2017, 06:39 PM)ECSNorway Wrote: Something tells me Doug would get along well in the universe of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousai -- aka "The Irregular At Magic High School"

Rereading the thread after Bob linked it in a more recent one and googling this, I discovered that there's a second season (I think in progress, or at least all the fansubs for ep6 just came out a few days ago) now as well, for anyone that was interested.

(10-12-2016, 08:51 PM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: As I continue to work out the details of the Ministry Battle, I inevitably come up with new, cool things for Doug to do.

I then immediately figure out how to let a member of the DA do them instead.

Quote:[T]he First Commandment of Interventions.

“Thou shalt not cockblock someone else’s torrid affair with awesomeness.”

(10-14-2016, 12:42 AM)Labster Wrote: ...  (And now I'm hearing Usagi yelling "asymmetric plot escalation!" at a monster.) ...