Tsukishima/Yamaguchi, Hogwarts AU
Dear Mr. Tsukishima,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
“I’ve got one, too,” Tadashi says, when he sees Kei’s letter, a hint of surprise in his voice. “I didn’t know you were magic, though, Tsukki.”
“Don’t be stupid. Magic isn’t real.” Kei says the words flippantly, dismissively, but the letter is clenched in a white-knuckled grip, bruising the parchment with a thumbprint crease that he’ll try and fail to smooth out later.
Tadashi gives him an odd look. “Of course it is. Did you think I was playing pretend the whole time?”
Kei wants to make a snappy comeback, but he can’t because, really, he sort of did. It didn’t explain that time Tadashi somehow managed to knock out five bullies without so much as a bruise -- or a movement from a frightened, huddled ball. It didn’t explain the way Tadashi’s action figures would move around on their own when they played, always out of the corner of Kei’s eyes but happening nonetheless, he knew it was happening. But still. Magic isn’t real. It couldn’t possibly be real.
Even if Kei is starting to doubt the truth of that.
Tadashi is grinning at him, sharp and knowing, and Kei feels his face flush. “Shut up,” he says. And then, because he’s read the letter so many times now that he’s learned it by rote, he asks as casually as he can manage, “what do you think they mean about the owl?”
Tadashi’s eyes light up, and he grabs Kei’s wrist and starts to drag him down the street. As they go, he babbles; “Oh Tsukki, I have so much to tell you now that you’re not just a Muggle! You can meet Crow, he’s not actually a crow, he’s a sooty owl, he’s my mum’s, he carries our letters for us… and I can tell you about Hogwarts! Well, I haven’t actually been there, but mum went, she’s a witch, she told me about it and said I’d get to go when I turned eleven and that I wasn’t to tell anyone because Muggles aren’t allowed to know. So that’s why I couldn’t tell you, even though I sort of did. Sorry, Tsukki. But you’re magic, too! Oh, maybe you can come to Diagon Alley with us, since your parents are both Muggles and all... ”
There’s a jumble of sounds Kei has never heard before mixed up in Tadashi’s happy chatter, things that sound like words but aren’t, even though Tadashi says them with such confidence. It’s all a joke. It’s a stupid, elaborate joke, and magic isn’t real. Magic is not real. He repeats it in his mind like a mantra, refusing to get his hopes up because what if...
Kei almost manages to convince himself, until a brick wall unfolds in front of his very eyes and Tadashi grins wide and says “Welcome to Diagon Alley, Tsukki,” and he steps into a whole new world.