Wednesday, November 4th -- 3:00 PM

"Oh no. Oh no no no no no no no."

Ted's skin prickled like a hundred velcro strips rubbing against his entire body. He stood alone in the boy's lavatory, staring goggle-eyed at his reflection in the mirror. The reflection that, to his horror, had dark skin the color of oak leaves that refused to return to its usual pale shade. But it couldn't be stuck. He'd done this transformation before, as part of his Lil' Trishna costume for Halloween. It'd been the tricky part, sure; consistent skin tone changes took a lot of concentration. And it'd gone away just fine when the night was over. This practice should have been the same way.

Okay, okay, he thought. Calm down. Don't get over-excited. Just slow down. Slow down and concentrate.

He closed his eyes. His own breathing echoed around the bathroom, ragged and rough. He forced it to slow and soften until his heart stopped pounding. When he'd gotten himself under control, he tried again. Back to normal, skin. Back to normal. Back to...

Discomfort prickled across his body like he'd touched a live wire. Ted bit his lip and tried to push it, force it through, but that just made his skin feel too tight, like shrink-wrap tightening over his very bones. He opened his eyes. His skin stopped tingling. In his reflection, only the hair had changed, mouse-brown roots seeping out of turquoise.

He was stuck. Stuck. He hadn't gotten stuck in years, not since he'd gotten old enough to read Mum's journals. The sensible part of his mind said that it wasn't so bad, that it'd go away in a few days, maybe even while he slept. But what if it didn't? What if he could never change his color again, never go back to the way things should be? What if this was his skin now?

Ted shook himself. He couldn't think like that. This would go away. He just had to wait it out. Back in the dorm? Yes. Preferably in bed, in the nice safe four-poster where there were no mirrors and he could just stay in the dark a while and be himself.

Ted snatched up his school bag and left the bathroom, his speed increasing with every step down the hall. He was so desperate to get out of there that he broke into a run as he rounded the corner, never looking to see who might be there. He'd gone barely three steps before he crashed headlong into another person and sent them both sprawling to the floor.

"Oh god," Ted gasped, using his adrenaline to jerk himself from sprawled on the floor to sitting. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going and...and..." He stopped, getting a good look at who he'd run into. He knew this person, a girl in green. Mercedes. "Ah -- Posada. Oh gosh. I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

Mercedes was headed back to her room from the library. Her hair no longer a festive, Halloween orange. Her short cropped hair was a light brown with simple blonde stripes. Her nose stuck in a book of Dark magic History, as she padded down the silent hallway, she wouldn't think that she would be barreled over the next corner she turned, but she was.

Teddy Lupin seemed hot and bothered as he sat up, spewing words that Sadie could barely understand. She held a spot on her head as she sat up. "Mira por donde te estás volviendo loco! I mean, I'm fine, yo-?" Mercedes cut herself off. Teddy's skin was a much darker shade than usual, his eyes were bigger too. Sadie pulled herself off the floor.

"Spend much time in the sun today Lupin?" She knew by the agitated look in his eyes and the twitching of his fingers, he was stuck. She felt for him, if you make a drastic change like a pin-point skin color, it's hard to go back. With hair it's no problem, you can flash back and forth, without side effects, but to change your whole body pigment-that was something else.

"Sorry to state the obvious, but you are really stuck aren't you?" She said putting her hand down to help the pigment anchored Teddy.

Mercedes Posada. Was it obscene luck or supreme misfortune that he should run into her, of all people, on a day like this? On one hand, she was the only other person who could honestly "get" his problem. On the other, god she was a brat.

"Spend much time in the sun today Lupin?"

Ted scowled up at her from the ground. "No. Did you get your head stuck in a beehive?"

And then, despite the barbs, she offered her hand. After a moment and a sigh, Ted took it, allowing her to pull him back to his feet. His hand twitched as the separated. He pulled it against his stomach and rubbed the aching joints. "Yeah, I'm stuck. Go ahead and laugh. Not like anyone else even knows what that means."

He flexed his hand. Pins and needles ran up his joints. He groaned. "Damn. It worked for Halloween!"

"No. Did you get your head stuck in a beehive?"

"Hmm, funny" Her hair went back to it's "natural" black

"Yeah, I'm stuck. Go ahead and laugh. Not like anyone else even knows what that means."

"Yeah, 'anyone else' isn't special, and getting stuck is no laughing matter, have you tried going back to normal, no changes, natural hair, eyes, nose, height, and everything?" That was always the easiest the way to get-unstuck, then stay that way for a while, then start off again slowly, first basics, hair and face,

"This was your costume, what were you a hairless monkey with a blue head?"She circled him, examining his skin. "Does it feel different than normal?"

Mercedes would never change herself that drastically, because she would most definitely get stuck, just like Teddy. She wanted to help, really, but she was a soul-less bitch, whose ego got in the way.

Ted's eye twitched in annoyance. Merlin's molting beard, Posada was a brat. He turned his head to follow her circling pace, feeling uncomfortably like  museum exhibit. "Yes, Mercedes, I have tried to go back to normal. It's not working. I am really and truly stuck. And my costume was Professor Trishna."

He tossed his head, switching his hair briefly from blue to Trishna's red. He let it linger for a moment, then returned it to his natural mouse-brown. It didn't look bad with the dark skin. In fact, it looked almost natural. But it didn't look like him.

"It feels like all my joints have needles stuck in them." When she opened her mouth to say more, Ted held up a silencing hand. "Posada, whatever you're going to say, I've tried it. Trust me. It's not like I'm going into this completely blind. I've got Mum's journals. She knows more about it than anyone."

"...Knew. She knew more about it than anyone."

Teddy was being impossible to work with and something about the way he talked about his mother really felt like a pinch to Sadie.

 "You at least had journals and information from another Metamorph, in fact the greatest Metamorph of all time, me? I got cero, zilch, nada. It was like giving an infant a 100,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and saying "Hey, you got your whole life to figure it out so 'hey' better get started"

And it went pretty much like that, everyday since the day she was born, she had discovered something new about her exceptionally. There were things about Metamorphosis that Teddy probably knew already that would take her years to figure out, and she envied him, she craved the knowledge he

Before Lupin could say anything else she just spewed out the most reasonable thing to do. "One, put your cloak hood over your head to save you from embarrassment, and two, we'll go to Sandusky's office and see what he says." She looked for any sign agreement on his irregularly tan face.

"What? No. No way, I am not going to Sandusky like this." Ted backed off, in case she tried to go for his cloak. He'd gotten used to being manhandled by girls long ago and was not in the mood today. "I'm not going anywhere like this except back to bed. What's he going to do, anyway? Turn me into a toad and hope I don't come out of it green? No thank you."

If Sadie felt pinched by Ted's talk of his mum, then the way she spoke of her was like being prodded with fire poker. She called her 'the greatest metamorph of all time,' like Mum hadn't started with hair that never stayed the same shade and worked her way up.

"It can't take this to a teacher. Any teacher. This is personal. It's my body, I have to figure out how to deal with it. You get that, right?" He figured that she had to. She was aware enough of her own body to keep the changes in check. At least, he thought she did.

Catching sight of his reflection in a nearby suit of armor, he self-consciously pulled the hood up on his cloak and turned away. He looked more like some ragged egyptian street urchin than a cocky kid from Wiltshire, and that was just wrong. "It's not that big a deal," he lied. "It'll go back on its own eventually. You know how it is. You've gotten stuck before...haven't you?"

"Of course I've gotten stuck! Every Metamorph gets stuck at one point or another! But sometimes major changes can't get changed back, have you read any of your transfiguration homework?" Sadie scoffed and picked up her books, hoping Teddy wouldn't run.

"Well if sleep doesn't fix it, try bathing in a soap you wouldn't normally use, every time I've gotten metamorphically paralyzed, I shower with a different soap and it was worked, without fail, for the past 13 years. Sometimes just experience helps with petty problems that no one else gets." Sadie suggested, hopefully he two of them could get Ted out of Trishna's skin and back into his.

Now that she had given some advice she was feeling a little bad about being a jerk when he needed help. She sighed loudly. "Listen, I know I've been being sort of un perra, but it's just exciting to meet other people like me, and I know I seem like a snob, that's because I am, just how I function. I think showing off is going to get me popularity points, but really it just makes me look stupid so..." She sighed again. "I'm sorry for being a big show off and for making fun of you, okay?"

"But sometimes major changes can't get changed back..."

Ted shuddered visibly. "Don't say that!" he hissed through his teeth, betraying the fear he'd struggled to keep hidden. Passing visions from last week's boggart infestation flitted before his mind's eye: his reflection without a face, his body with no identity, him without himself. In the halls and their aftermath, he'd been more terrified of losing his friends, but to lose himself so easily too...

Talk of soap, then. New experiences. Not fear. He flexed his hands again, letting the tingle bring him back down to earth. "Different soap? I hadn't...okay. I'll try that, later. It's worth a shot."

Her apology caught him by surprise. Mercedes Posada, apologizing? Huh. Who would have thought it? "I don't actually know what oon-paira means, but...It's okay. If you realize what you were doing, I mean. No harm." He shrugged. "Honestly, all the changing you do during the day...it always made me worried. Mum says -- said -- that consistency is the hardest thing to build up, but that if you don't have it, it can cause trouble down the line."

"Honestly, all the changing you do during the day...it always made me worried. Mum says -- said -- that consistency is the hardest thing to build up, but that if you don't have it, it can cause trouble down the line."

Sadie threw her hands up in anguish, "See? another thing I don't know! Do you think I could take a look a t these journals sometime? I mean, I know how important they are to you, so I'll be fine if you say no, but, uh, yeah. Amigos?" Mercedes stuck out her hand and shrugged her shoulders, it was the only thing she could think of at that moment, and she couldn't change it now.

"Anyways, what's the deal with you and the Hufflepuff, Hunter? I think she has a little bit of a crush on you." She put air quotes around 'little'. "That was horrible in Transfiguration." Mercedes said, referring to the disastrous class the week before.

"I...I guess that'd be all right." The hesitation Ted felt at that moment was palpable, like a heavy weight. His mother's journals weren't just important to him, they were precious. Far be it for him to keep their useful information to himself, especially when Mercedes could get hurt as a result, but the rest of it -- the precious insight into his mothers' life, her struggles and triumphs and, especially, the volume recounting her unacknowledged love for his father -- he wished jealously to keep to himself forever.

Despite the hesitation, he accepted her outstretched hand. "Sure. Whatever you say. I'll see if I can't make up a primer for you. Notes. You know, so you don't have to go searching."

Talk of Alice Hunter brought a slight blush to his dark cheeks, one that had nothing to do with morphing. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Who, Alice? She's...nice. We're working things out. Yes, that's it exactly, we're working things out. It's. Well. It's going well. ...Yes."