It had been a truly ridiculous morning, and Landis intended to counter that the best way he knew how: with rationality, with reason, with cold hard fact-based process. With testing. With potions. As no one was certain of how long this prank would last and the perpetrators were not yet caught (and thereafter interrogated about the ingredients and lifespan of their little morning powder), Landis had done as he'd informed Sandusky and headed straight down to the dungeons to attempt an antidote.

There were, unfortunately, several set-backs to his plan. One was that the powder dropped on the hall had entirely dissipated. Whatever wasn't inhaled disappeared like leprechaun gold, leaving him no samples to work with but what evidence swirled in his own blood. While Landis had no problem sanitizing a potion's knife for the sake of progress, he doubted Neely would be so understanding were he to return her body to her in such a way used. (He was trying not to think too hard about what she was doing with his body. The antidote was more important than keeping track of her, but even the idea of his body huddling in the common room or chewing quills in class was enough to make him grimace.)

The other setback was that Landis had long since abandoned Neely's death-trap heels, and in her bare feet Neely only stood a pitiful 152.4 centimeters.[1] To his annoyance, he could no longer reach the higher shelves in the Potions closet. Summoning jars from higher shelves when he couldn't see the labels got very old, very fast.

He had not kept his name hovering above his body as in the Great Hall, and anyone who'd entered the Potions classroom would find Neely laying out ingredients on the front counter, kittenish face twisted in a scowl. He did not think there were any classes in here on Fridays, but he would be quick to disabuse anyone who dared enter and laugh. He knew he should have skipped breakfast this morning.

1.

5 ft.

He (or was it she? No, best not to ponder that) had returned to the tower, where he had closed and barricaded the door, then paced the floor with his head in his hands - and then, at last, calmed down and tried to rationalize what had happened. He hadn't been in the best mindset for this to happen in the first place - and to find himself having an out of body experience on a low amount of sleep was not helpful to his mental state. At least he was fully awake now.

He sucked his breath in, taking in the situation. He was in Juliette Vaillancourt's body. It was, without a moment's doubt, a very female body. There had been times, as a younger man, when this situation would have been...not that objectionable. Now he was 33, and...well, it was someone else's body. There were things you didn't do. Even if you really wanted to.

Tapendra took a shuddering breath, and ran a hand through his hair - and promptly messed it up. He reached for - his wand! It was still in his trouser pocket. He didn't even have his wand. Gods.

He adjusted his clothing, automatically beginning to fidget. For how tight the pencil skirt was, the white shirt worn over it was quite loose. He couldn't really recall seeing her dress that way before, but he wasn't about to go change, no matter how annoying the sleeves shifting around was. He rolled them up, but it didn't help much.

Classes were supposed to be starting, soon. He didn't know if they'd been cancelled; either way, he had a few hours yet. He had to fix this. He couldn't teach like this! He didn't want to be seen. There had to be a cure. This is was a student prank, he hoped. It wasn't like students would use an incurable potion...right?

And thus he snuck from the tower, moving quietly on bare feet (Juliette's high heels having been kicked off in a side passage) down the stairs and towards the potions dungeons, trying to move down the back corridors. The castle was quiet - which was good. But ominous. Had there been an announcement in the hall he hadn't heard? Was he failing to assist with the recovery effort? He'd find out after escaping to the dungeons briefly, if it came to that.

Ye gods, these skirts were restrictive. How did women run in them? He hiked the pencil shirt up a bit, encountered thigh-highs, and shoved it back down. That explained the extra straps, anyway. He'd been wondering what that sensation had been.

The Potion Classroom's door was a welcome sight, and he opened it, stepped inside, and slammed it shut behind him before even thinking to look around. When he did, though, he froze. "W-Woolfolk?" He asked, having had to stare to remember the girl's name. But, no - it couldn't be. Woolfolk wasn't the sort to scowl like that, nor to be apparently so analytically going over potions ingredients. Tapendra's thickly made-up eyes narrowed.

His mood and the run - and the fact he'd kept running his hands through Juliette's long tresses - had reduced her tailored appearance to something less so. As far as whoever was in Neely's body could tell, the Potions Mistress stood in the door way, speaking with an English accent, her hair a terrible mess, elegant lips curved into a confused frown. And, perhaps the most tellingly, barefoot.

Tapendra looked at the girl again, his brain kicking into gear in stages. "Morgan?" he asked, head tilting slightly.

The new vantage point might have been comical, powerful, some combination of both, but it did not stop the twist of unpleasantness that crossed Juliette’s-- no, Tapendra Trishna’s face-- as she looked out over the House tables, the students scrambling, horrified and disoriented, toward or away from their old bodies. Some seemed repelled by their old selves adopting new quirks; others were desperate to keep tabs. She listened to the Transfiguration professor, now arguably less time-honored a presence, bellow boyishly instructions for the hall at large. The name tag floating above his head was the quickest way to identify him; similarly so, Juliette’s favorite librarian, who was now... not only shorter than Juliette, but absurdly shorter than Tapendra. Landis in knee socks and lip gloss was hardly a vision Juliette ever expected to become a reality; even his brief week as a woman had seen neither of those distinctions. Of course, it wasn’t really Landis, but Cornelia Woolfolk... with Landis’ brain, memories, quirks. That sounded mildly dangerous, but not half as dangerous as...

Juliette turned, feeling slightly unbalanced despite the fact that Tapendra was not wearing heels. The librarian-- or the fifteen-old-girl who now occupied his body-- was looking down his own shirt, blushing madly. Juliette herself-- that was to say, her body-- had abandoned her chair already, was hobbling away. It was a lucky thing that both she and Tapendra were redheads. She fastened her gaze on the back of his (her own) head, promised some sort of conversation later.

Narrowly missing a wall fixture behind her, for everything was now in a new place, much lower, Juliette managed to gracefully (if it could be called that) slip around quickly-abandoned chairs and alternately frantic and authoritative fellow staff to make it to the House tables, help some of the professors and Prefects-turned-second-years round up students, calm them down. But at the forefront of her mind-- and certainly she was not the only one-- was a quick cure for this madness. She knew, as Neely Woolfolk disappeared from the Great Hall, where she might find the girl. Juliette finished (gently!) prying a very small Ravenclaw from a towering, gawky Hufflepuff boy, assuring the younger child (who was actually the older child), that his/her body would be restored shortly, and that following the Head of Hufflepuff’s orders would be the wisest option for everyone. Then she turned, plucked one Cornelia Woolfolk from her appropriated seat at the staff table, and prodded the girl-in-librarian’s-clothing toward the Entrance Hall. No nonsense about her, Juliette took off with newly-long strong strides toward the dungeons, forcing Neely to keep up at her heels. She had never heard Landis speak so fast or so much nonsense. When they were two steps cleared of the Great Hall, Juliette turned on the girl, brandishing a wand that was not her own, and said: “Be quiet, Miss Woolfolk.”

It shut the girl up, but the command was tempered by Juliette nearly tripping down the stairs into the dungeons; the once-spacious staircase had become somewhat more cramped, albeit still accommodating, even for towering figures like Tapendra or Hagrid. So this was what it was like to be taller than everyone else.

The now-pouting con of a librarian seemed to be awkwardly adjusting to a newfound height and certain masculine features as well. In the corner of her eye, as Juliette continued to stride toward the potions laboratory, she noticed Neely picking up strands of Landis’ hair, tucking them behind her ears, smoothing the top of her head; the girl also fidgeted with buttons, stared down at the flat men’s shoes on her new feet, and, most unsettlingly turned the wand slowly in her new, long fingers. Juliette turned around, brows furrowed in a familiar no-nonsense manner, and Accio’ed the wand straight out of the girl’s (Landis’) hand. The idea of a half dozen or more students having unlimited access to staff members’ wands was a problem all on its own, never mind the great number of bodies switched in an eye’s blink.

As they rounded a corner, Juliette’s eyes fell on the figure in the doorway, blocking their entry. It was herself. To see one’s self outside of a mirror reflection was... Juliette did not know if there was a word for it, but she would have preferred never to have experienced it. Luckily, she was a witch, Tapendra a wizard, and these unfortunate situations happened from time to time. Surely he would find her body more accommodating than that of a winged pony. Surely.

Her eyes swept down to his-- her!-- feet, and noted what she might have suspected when she saw him escaping the hall... if she had not been too occupied with quarreling Hufflepuffs-in-Ravenclaw-bodies. “Those shoes will cost a sizable portion of your next paycheck, Tapendra.” She beckoned his attention, her own gaze (or his) settling on her own (real) head. It was astonishing, how quickly a man could ruin the feminine artistry that went into a woman’s version of business casual. If there were not more important things, like brewing an antidote, to consider, Juliette might have paused to fix her hair, as Tapendra were merely an inconvenient mannequin. As if she possessed x-ray vision, she saw Neely behind her, poking around, staring at Landis, thinking the very same thing. “The potions classroom is not a place for hairbrushes, Miss Woolfolk,” she noted, without turning. She moved somewhat strangely past her own body, eyeing Tapendra with the same promise of a conversation as she had before, only this time he might see it.

She pointed to a seat, waited for Neely-as-Landis to take it, and settled on a stool opposite the Slytherin’s diminutive body; as astonishing as it was to see how quickly Tapendra had frazzled her appearance, it was perhaps more so to see Neely Woolfolk put so much effort and skill into a cauldron. There was the briefest moment of pause as Juliette marveled, almost gleefully, though very privately, at towering over Landis, even while sitting, and Tapendra, even while he was she. With no long hair to pull back into a bun, Juliette summoned a pair of dragonhide gloves from her desk. Naturally, they did not fit, though it didn’t stop her from trying to shove her fingers into them. Sensible. She shifted her long legs beneath the table, and stared at Tapendra as if this were his fault. Then, with a wave of her wand, she enlarged them. She looked back to the Astronomy professor, wondering if he mightn’t join them. Or at least compose herself. Herself.

Juliette stumbled into the room, looking ragged, worn, and panicked. Neely's blonde brows rose at the sight. Clearly, whoever was inhabiting Juliette's body was not a woman nor even a man accustomed to caring for his own appearance. The bare feet didn't mean much, as Landis stood in stockings too. But the tone of voice and the dishevelment twigged something. A student would probably have attached an honorific before his name. Landis frowned. Not just any man...

Then Trishna strode in and removed all doubt, with Landis' body in tow to boot. Landis exhaled in relief, lips spreading in a brief smile. What a remarkable woman she was... really just, top-notch. Thank Merlin she'd remembered the important things. Though the quip about the hairbrush had him raise a hand halfway to his (Neely's) hair, puzzled, his own vanity coming into play. Surely Neely's head was not so mussed as Juliette's. How had that even happened?

"I need blood," he said curtly, bringing his mind back to the matter of importance. Neely's eyes were a warmer shade of blue than his own, but they seemed chilly enough as they lingered on his body - pale, and judgmental. If he beckoned her, the chit would likely scream; if he turned the knife on her own forearm, hysterics would ensure. So which was worse to inflict on Juliette, the pain of the cut or its healing? He could not decide, so he left it for her instead. She would know what she wanted done with her own body.

He spoke to her as he said, "I'm going to alienate the strain," a silent request for help. The two of them working together could test reactions much more easily than one working alone. Even starting with the likely ingredients to react - those to do with transformation and violent change - there was a myriad of tests before them.

The approach of his own body, now apparently under the control of one Juliette Vaillancourt, just made everything worse. It was one thing to look down at everyone, and quite another to see exactly how high up he was. He automatically tried to run a handthrough his newly gained red hair and simply found it a worst bee's nest than he'd anticipated.

Still, the perhaps worst part of seeing his own body was the odd carry over of body language. Just as Morgan-turned-Woolfolk had gained the stiff and frosty demeanor of the Librarian, Juliette-turned-him kept hers...including the slight but noticeable about hip sway.

Good gods. He supposed he probably had added to her body the gangly awkwardness. The look, amazingly, was doing neither of them any good.

He frowned (given the new arrangement of his face, this came off as a slight pout) at her mention of the shoes, trying to ignore the oddness of a faint french accent carried on his own deep voice. "Very well," he said, moving to let her into the room. "I can retrieve them when we are not, err..." Unable to come up with a word, he waved at the room at large, walking to the cauldron over which Landis worked and eyeing the concoction within.

He looked up at the man's mention of blood, automatically reaching up and stroking his beard-less and now delicate chin. There was a conundrum; it was only proper that the lady in the room not provide but on the receiving end of the knife, but now he was in her body (which he doubted she wanted stabbed) and she in his, which meant that option did not really spare her the pain.

"I can provide the blood," he said easily, looking at Landis. "Though I leave it to Professor Valliancourt to decide - I have no issue with pain, or my own body having a mark, but -" He let it hang, looking over at (and up at) the Potions Mistress. Master. ...Professor.

That Landis was not in his body and could not use a student's blood for the source left them with two options. The librarian had promptly realized it, was waiting now for Juliette to make the decision. The blood, in theory, was the easy part. Separating the strain would require something more.

Juliette's instinct would have been to draw the ingredient from herself. It was less messy, came with fewer complications than asking for volunteers or forcing someone to comply. Her hand had tightened softly-- rather, Tapendra's hand had tightened awkwardly at Juliette's will-- around the wand which was a foreign source of comfort. She paused, however, pondering the two options they had left, acknowledging once again that she was not in her body. If they worked quickly, she might be.

"Tapendra," she said, stepping toward her reflection in the flesh. He was obliging. That made it easier. To hover above herself was again a strange thing, a sensation like some nursery tale in The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Coincidentally or not, being Tapendra Trishna was learning to read in English. Juliette reached for the wand he held, offering his own to the man trapped in her body. The familiarity of her own most treasured belonging bloomed warmth into Juliette's newly large palms. She would use it over a knife this time, though knives were commonplace— and exceptionally useful— in potions-brewing. There was something about unwittingly parting with one’s wand, for ten minutes, twenty, half an hour, that made it all the dearer. Finding a vein was easy, the blue much more pigmented than her flesh, and it would be more thorough than a superficial cut. She raised her wand, waited very briefly for silent confirmation, a glance, an acknowledgement of the permission he had already given, grabbed his wrist (her own), and drew the wood mere millimeters above pale skin. Though her movement was graceful enough, she moved much faster than any friend offering comfort. The no-nonsense of it was pronounced, somehow, by the size Tapendra’s body, the look Juliette had put on his face. The spell was keen-- and painful-- as any properly cared for knife. Still, the quicker, the less painful (or messy), if, perhaps, only slightly so. To use her own blood still felt right to the potioneer, even if it did come at the expense of causing pain for the astronomer. She pulled his arm more thoroughly over the empty glass beside the cauldron Landis had set up. When the necessary amount had been procured, she loosened her grasp, began a softer, more song-like charm to close the wound enough so that he would stop dripping blood. She released him. She would buy him a glass of wine for the pain, perhaps when he was reimbursing her for her shoes. And for Woolfolk, a roll of Spello-tape. Presently, their minds beckoned their native bodies. It was a demand worth cuts and stings.