its just magic

A week later, Neil still couldn’t quite successfully navigate the castle. It didn’t help that the staircases kept moving, of all things. The staircase corridor had given Neil numerous headaches in his short time there, especially because they wouldn’t stop spitting him out in random places or classrooms.

One such instance occurs again today, and Neil can’t help his growing frustration when he realized he was not on the way to the Astrology tower but was instead in some other part of the castle he had never seen before. And of course, when he turned around, the stairs leading to this corridor had already moved. Throwing his hands up in the air and muttering some few choice words under his breath, Neil decided to keep moving down the hallway. Forward and not back, just like his mom always said.

However, he was about to revoke that sentiment when, thirty minutes later, he still had no idea where he was and began to debate turning around and retracing his steps. Neil was beginning to seriously regret not asking any of the other boys in Slytherin for directions, even though he only really talked to his dormmates. Excluding Kevin Day, of course. However, after the conversation on the first night, Neil was intent on never talking to him again. The entire conversation had been revolving around some fictional wizard sport that Neil had never heard of before. Day, of course, was revolted by this lack of knowledge and proceeded to lecture him for the next two hours on “quidditch,” the best thing to happen since the 1488 Goblin Wars (…what) in Day’s humble opinion. Which was not in fact humble, Neil was quite sure. The man switched from talking about how great quidditch was to how great he was at quidditch to random World Cup matches that he found revolutionary.

Neil tried his best to tune the man in the duration of the supper, which was not in fact too hard considering his surroundings. There were lit candles hovering above the tables, and the ceiling itself mimicked the harsh weather outside, though Neil didn’t even begin to question how. Magic. That’s as far as he’s gotten.

Neil was soon drawn out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps echoing ahead of him. Quickly, he glanced around him and ducked into one of the nearby rooms. It seemed to be an empty classroom, as he quickly took stock of what was inside and any possible threats lurking within. Once Neil was sure the coast was clear, he crouched and gently cracked the door open again. He waited a few moments as the footsteps became closer, ignoring his traitorous heart pumping in his chest. It was just another student, he told himself, not my father or his men. They can’t get me here.

Sure enough, a few seconds later a short figure came into view, and Neil felt himself relax. It was a boy around his age with jet-black hair and a blue tie around his neck, marking him as Ravenclaw. The other Slytherins didn’t seem to mind that house too much, so Neil didn’t immediately consider him a threat. Indeed, the boy paused in the hallway and looked down at a piece of parchment he was gripping in his hands. An audible groan left his lips as he looked around and crumpled the map up.

“Blasted castle! Everything messed up and so stupid. Fucking Englishmen! I hate the stupid bastards,” the boy muttered under his breath. Neil felt his eyebrows raise involuntarily as he realized the boy hadn’t spoken English, but French. How strange, Neil considered, considering they were in England (he’s pretty sure- the train ride messed him up), and the other boy was currently ranting about how stupid the English currently were. While Neil was a little offended by that statement, he couldn’t help agreeing about the blasted castle.

Eventually the boy gave up and threw his map at the wall before stomping off in the direction Neil had just walked from. Neil waited a few moments in his abandoned classroom before walking out in the hallway once the boy was out of view. He scooped up the parchment the boy left behind and examined the map within.

Of course, though, it wasn’t an ordinary map (because nothing in Neil’s life was easy). He watched as the map shifted and moved with black blobs moving this way and that. It took him a moment to realize, but once he squinted he realized they were just black blobs, they were footprints with little names attached to the ends. He suddenly felt a new wave of pity for the Frenchman, because this could barely be considered a map. He felt overwhelmed by the shifting shapes and moving corridors, and soon just stuffed the parchment inside his pack. He would examine it later, but for now he was about to break his mother’s sacred rule:

He turned around and went back the way he just came.

***

That evening, Neil curled up onto his four-poster bed, which was more comfortable than many of the beds he and his mother used to sleep on (no matter how much his dormmates complained about their lumpiness). He pulled the Frenchman’s discarded parchment from his bag and ducked his head under his blankets. There he flipped on the flashlight he had brought with him (part of his essential safety kit) and went to examine the parchment once more. However, he was stopped short when he realized it was blank. Frowning, he resurfaced from under his blankets and sorted through his school bag once more. All the other stuff in there had been for his classes that day, and there were no other pieces of parchment in there.

He looked skeptically back at the blank parchment and wondered how the fuck it had gone from having pictures that moved around to completely blanked. He cast another look at his schoolbag to confirm that this was the same paper the Frenchman threw away and came back empty.

He felt even more vindicated for the Frenchman now. No wonder the guy had tossed this jumbled map, this didn’t make any sense. And for once, telling himself it was just magic didn’t seem to satisfy quite as well.

A dipping weight as the end of the bed made Neil’s head snap up. A boy with sandy blonde hair and hazel eyes smiled brightly at him. Neil sighed internally. No, nothing was ever easy in Neil’s life.

“Yes, Jack?”

“What are you working on?” he manages to make out before scooching even closer to Neil. “I saw you just staring at the parchment and was curious.” And of course you couldn’t be curious in silence, Neil thought wryly.

“It’s blank. It wasn’t blank earlier,” Neil didn’t waste his breath on being polite for the boy, he knew it wouldn’t deter him either way. Jack seemed hellbent on becoming friends with Neil, although he couldn’t determine why considering how closed off and quiet Neil was. That didn’t stop Jack from making one hell of an effort, though.

Jack just hummed thoughtfully before tilting his head. “Have you tried using your wand on it?”

Neil just barely bit back a scoff. No, he hadn’t tried the damn thing. Despite being in the magic castle for a week, Neil kept forgetting he could do the whole magic thing, too. He ignored the sad ache in his chest as he pulled the wand out, knowing it was his mother’s. He had never seen her use it all their years on the run, though he assumed she kept it close all the same. He didn’t understand yet why she had hid it from him, but there was a sort of familiarity to it as he gripped the wand around its hilt.

“What do I do with it?” Neil asks, despite knowing Jack won’t know much more than him. He was a half-blood, with his father being a wizard yet absent from most of Jack’s life. He grew up with his mom and siblings in a small suburban neighborhood and didn’t know a wit about magic until that letter showed up on his doorstep. Turns out Jack’s siblings didn’t all have the same dad, which Jack said was a rude awakening for them, considering he thought his stepdad was his actual father for most of his life. All of this was of course imparted on Neil unwillingly, but he did his best to listen to the boy when he seemed homesick or missed his family.

“I don’t know, poke it,” Jack suggests, sounding all too enthused about the idea of a blank sheet of paper.

Neil followed his suggestion with a hesitant poke. Nothing happened, and he looked questioningly back up at Jack. The other boy gestured wildly with his hands, and Neil simply rose a confused brow in response. Jack theatrically rolled his eyes before hopping up and grabbing something from his neighboring bed. He returned a moment later with a plop and stuck out a hand for the parchment.

Neil handed it over without comment, and watched as the boy began to examine and poke the paper with his own wand. He had no idea what Jack was planning and hoped it didn’t involve blowing up the dorm room. That was sure to make the other two boys who lived with them mad.

Jack cleared his throat before saying in a loud, dramatic voice “Reveal yourself!” while simultaneously poking it with his wand at the same time. Neil stared at his roommate for a second, before reluctantly checking to see if anything happened. To his utter shock, black ink began spreading across the front of the parchment into shapes and letters.

Jack, the idiot, screamed and dropped the parchment onto the bed while simultaneously falling off the bed. His shriek drew the attention of the other two boys, who had up to this point been silently reading or doing homework on their respective beds. Neil silently cursed Jack in his head as they stood up and wandered over to see what the fuss was about.

Sean, the tallest of the roommates who had light blonde hair and greenish eyes, peered down at Jack who was still lying on the floor. “Are you… alright?” he questions hesitantly, probably because Jack looks perfectly fine but did just scream bloody murder.

Jack hops up to his feet, embarrassedly before returning to his spot on the end of Neil’s bed and examining the parchment once more. In the excitement, Neil forgot about the words forming but now scooched closer to see what had appeared.

William, the other occupant of the room, flopped on the bed next to Jack. “What is that?” he inquires, cocking his head before glancing at Neil. Neil didn’t understand his roommates and didn’t get why they kept trying to be friends with him, despite his curt answers and avoidant personality.

“It was a piece of parchment that Neil found, and it was blank, but look! I unlocked it,” he says proudly, holding it up triumphantly.

“What does it say, Jack?” Neil asks with only a slight hint of impatience in his voice, which he was quite proud of.

“Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are sincerely disgusted by your lack of creativity and bid you to gain more of a personality.”

Neil couldn’t help his jaw dropping and the slight laugh that escaped his lips. Will, however, had no problem dying laughing and snatching the paper from Jack.

“You call that unlocking it, Jack? The bloody paper just insulted you!” Will wheezed out while a sheepish Sean stood off to the side with a smile framing his face.

Jack sputtered indignantly. “It was not an attack on my personality, it was blank before! I got it to say words.” Will rolled his eyes before pulling his own wand out of his pocket.

Clearing his throat, just like Jack did, Will pokes the paper and says: “Oh mighty parchment, please reveal your secrets and kindly insult Jack again.”

“Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are only slightly appeased by your change in words but bid you do try harder. Padfoot would like to specifically say that if you have to ask others for insults, you do not deserve to insult others at all, you startling buffoon. Yes, you may quote him on that.”

All four of the Slytherins openly gape at the paper. Neil wants to send a fruit basket to the poor Frenchman and suddenly does not blame his harsh report of Englishmen. Because, what the fuck?

His roommates seem to hold similar views of disbelief. “It’s like it’s alive,” Jack breathes quietly, and Neil and Sean nod silently. William, still holding the paper, slowly places it down on the bed before asking:

“Where the hell did you find that thing?”

“In a hallway, crumpled on the ground,” Neil omits the part about the French boy for some reason, “it looked like a map, at first. I couldn’t figure it out though and just stuffed it in my bag for later.”

“Yeah, and then it was blank when he got it out a few minutes ago,” Jack supplies unnecessarily.

“That is a nasty piece of magic,” William says, a look of utter disbelief still on his face. Neil assumes this to be true since Will grew up in a family of wizards, a ‘pureblood.’ Sean nods along and that’s all the clarification Neil needs since Sean is also a pureblood.

“How did the map vanish though? And how do we get it to reappear?” Jack questions the more knowledgeable boys. Sean shrugs while an eager smile spreads across Will’s mouth.

“Why don’t we find out?”

They spend the rest of the night on Neil’s bed, looming over the parchment spread in front of them. Jack and Will supply most of the conversation with Sean adding in comments here and there. Neil finds he doesn’t really mind the company and feels himself slowly open up as the insults get more and more crude, and Jack gets more and more offended. By the night’s end, he finds himself openly laughing and joking with his roommates and trying his own wand and words on the paper. It doesn’t matter that they never get the map to appear, because Neil begins to feel that deep loneliness and ache for his mother ease, just a little, by the warmth and laughter of his roommates. His friends.