Remarkable Things

It starts on a Tuesday with a Patronus.

“Awesome!” Karen exclaims, when Professor Mungley utters the word, then looks embarrassed at having displayed such unbecoming enthusiasm.

Dania shrugs and plays with his wand lazily, like he’s seen Roger do many a time. He can’t quite flip it like Roger did yet, but he’s getting there.

The students around him giggle and talk in hushed voices, barely containing their excitement at the prospect of finally getting to shut the textbooks and do some real magic.

“Wands out!” Professor Mungley demands in a surly voice, and then proceeds to explain the ins and outs of the Expecto Patronum spell.

“I bet mine’s something cool,” He hears Zverev in front of him say to some quiet Ravenclaw guy (Steve? Stan?), who is staring at his textbook like it’s written in another language. Dania thinks he might be on the Quidditch team. “And big! And horny!”

“Horny sounds right,” The guy sniffs distractedly. Zverev snorts obnoxiously.

“I meant literal horns, you twit,” he says, and Dania watches him flip his ridiculous mop of blond hair in a such a practiced, smug fashion that a Ravenclaw girl next to him shoots Zverev a dreamy look.

“Isn’t Patronus Auror-level magic?” The Ravenclaw girl wonders with a frown and gets promptly ignored. Dania wonders whether the ancient professor even heard her in the first place, and then doubts it would’ve made a difference. Mungley has done whatever he wanted the entire year, with no regard for school curriculum or students’ personal preferences. Doesn’t matter that they only covered basic offensive spells last month, because Mungley’s fancy of the week is Patronus, it seems.

It’s all moot, though, because not even ten minutes later, he realises he shouldn’t have worried. He’s not the only one around who hasn’t managed to produce even a sliver of a fog out of his wand, let alone a fully corporeal Patronus. The classroom is full of disappointed teens, awkwardly waving their wands around like muggle conductors. As far as Dania can see, no one is even close to achieving anything solid besides a random and short-lived puff of shiny fog.

“You have got to concentrate,” Mungley nags, walking around and looking at students down his crooked nose. “Concentration is key.”

“Ah, sod it!” Andrey curses, swinging his wand like a mad person. “I’ve got nothing. You?”

Karen shrugs hopelessly, and relief rolls around in Dania’s stomach. It’s not him, it’s just the spell. He’s not the problem here.

The frenzied wand waving continues for another long moment, and Dania feverishly looks around the classroom to make sure that he’s not the only one failing at the spell. Zverev at the corner is glaring at his wand like it’s malfunctioning, and Dania suppresses a satisfied smirk; Felix is waving his wand like it’s nunchucks to no avail; Taylor is resting with his head on his arms over his desk, apparently having already admitted defeat; Casper, next to Andrey, is calmly and evenly doing the wand-motion over and over again with unprecedented patience, bless him.

“Nice, nice,” Mungley suddenly rasps out, coming to a stop. Everybody’s heads whip around at once to stare at the person deserving of such high praise, and for a moment Dania is horrified that it’s Zverev, before he realises that everyone’s staring at the quiet guy next to him. “Mr… Sissipas?”

“Tsitsipas,” he corrects quietly, going beet red, staring at the misty fog erupting from the tip of his wand. Around the room, everyone’s eyes are glued to it.

“Try that again, Mr. Sissipas,” Mungley drags on. He grips the guy’s wrist in his own hand and makes the correct wand motion. “Watch the tip of your wand.”

He lets go of him and takes a step back, his tiny eyes following the guy’s every move, lighting up with genuine interest for the first time since class started.

Tsitsipas looks positively mortified with the attention. He raises his wand, the eyes of all four Hogwarts houses trained on him, and makes the wand movement.

Silver vapour bursts out of the tip of his wand, growing as it moves and spreads around him. Dania can hear disbelieving gasps and hushed whispers all around the classroom.

“Extraordinary, Mr. Sissipas!” Mungley says with the rarest of smiles and claps his chubby hands. “Quite extraordinary, indeed! I don’t think I have ever seen a student get this spell on their first day. Fifty points to Ravenclaw!”

Another round of gasps, and Dania’s fingers tighten around his wand. Mungley has never given a single point to any of the students since September, and now this unprecedented generosity.

Tsitsipas looks warily around with a tentative smile. It doesn’t escape Dania that even though the majority of his house looks impressed, no one besides Andrey (and… Zverev?) seems particularly happy for him.

“How did you manage that?” Karen mutters, violently swinging his wand until he accidentally pokes Jack in the eye. “I can’t even get it to produce a puff of vapour, and I’m a happy bloke!”

“The key is to choose the right memory and to really concentrate on it,” Mungley goes on, walking past them. “Let Mr. Sissipas be an example that you can actually achieve a great result if only you do it right.”

By the end of the class, his fingers are numb from squeezing his wand. No one else has managed to produce a sliver of the silver fog. He chooses not to dwell on the disappointment of his own ineptitude and listens instead to Holger’s inane chatter, claiming that Holger did create a puff of vapour while no one was looking.

By the time they walk out of class, Andrey is looking at him oddly.

“Why such a long face?” He raises his eyebrows, looking at ease despite his own failure to produce anything worthwhile, but then, Andrey’s never been one for academic anxiety. “It was just the first lesson.”

“That Tsitsipas bloke still managed it!” Dania bites off.

Zverev jogs up to them and claps Andrey on the back. Andrey beams at him, and Dania cringes. Zverev fixes him with a contemptuous look.

“What’s got your knickers in a twist? It’s only been one lesson, I’m sure if you try hard enough, even you could manage to scramble one single good memory from that twisted brain of yours.”

His tone is teasing, but Dania still snaps, “Yes, well, maybe I couldn’t.”

“Um,” a feeble voice says behind him, and they all turn. “I know Professor Mungley said to use a memory, but I didn’t do that.”

The Tsitsipas bloke is fumbling awkwardly by the classroom entrance, making the students around him huff and have to squeeze around him to exit the room. He speaks in a quiet, barely-there voice and blushes quite outrageously, as if perpetually embarrassed by his own life.

“Oh yeah?” Dania says, maybe a bit too eager. “What did you do, then?”

Tsitsipas’ eyes fleet to him for a portion of a second. “I just used a feeling.”

“A feeling,” Zverev repeats dubiously.

“Yes. A very strong feeling. A powerful emotion.” He shrugs, looking progressively more miserable by the second. “It worked for me. Maybe you could try that next time.”

With that, he shifts on his feet, his fingers flexing around his wand. It’s long, thin and very elegant, Dania notes distantly, a distinct regal feel to it. A wand of a proper Pureblood.

Tsitsipas’ knuckles are white around it.

“Thanks,” Dania says, blinking back into the conversation, and claps Tsitsipas on the shoulder. “I’ll be sure to try that.”

Tsitsipas just stands there, frozen, for another moment, before flashing them both a tiny, tentative smile. The next moment, he is gone faster than the snitch.

“A strong feeling,” Zverev mutters on the way to the Great Hall, shaking his head, “Does that mean I have to be in touch with my feelings now?”

“Does that mean I’d need to control my feelings?” Andrey jokes, when they meet up later by the Greenhouse for their Herbology class.

“I’d like to see you try that,” Karen snorts. The Slytherins passing them by on their way to Herbology are throwing them heated glares, not that Dania still lets it bother him.

“Still, Stef managed a Patronus in about two minutes, that’s just mental,” Zverev says again, half impressed, half annoyed. Dania immediately notes the familiar use of Tsitsipas’ first name. “I mean, Father still can’t produce one.”

“I actually have no idea what my Mum’s Patronus is,” Andrey says thoughtfully, “never thought to ask.”

“Maybe you should,” Karen gives them all a meaningful stare. “Considering the way things are progressing over here, wouldn’t hurt to be sure…”

This renders them all quiet and somber, if only for a moment. As much as Dania would like to pretend everything is fine and will work itself out, the whole Chamber of Secrets thing last year, along with hushed-up reports of Azkaban break-outs at the start of this year, proposes an entirely different story.

Oh, the irony of escaping one war-torn magical community to jump head-first into another.

“Yeah, I’m actually with Mungley on this one,” Andrey says in a very rare bout of seriousness. “Who knows what’s coming. Conjuring a Patronus might turn out to be a must.”

“Yeah,” Zverev sighs. “That was one of his better ideas.”

“That being said,” says Karen, “I can’t believe he’s doing that now, as if we don’t have enough on our plates as it is in our NEWT year, Jesus Christ.”

The somber mood is thankfully broken, and Zverev snorts. “Jesus Christ? Your Muggleborn-ness is showing, don’t let the Slytherins hear you say that.”

“I’m right here,” Dania snaps at him. “And I get enough shite for being friends with you as it is.”

“Seriously?” Andrey raises his eyebrows. “They still give you shit?”

“It was actually alright before that Malfoy prick came around and became the most popular bloke in town,” Dania winces. “I swear, I’ve never wanted to punch a thirteen-year-old in the face so much.”

“I hear you,” Andrey says with sympathy. “I mean, I love Britain, but their Blood Status obsession is beyond ridiculous.”

“Hey, at least Mungley doesn’t care about that,” Zverev laughs. “Kept calling Stef ‘Sissipass’the entire class! I mean, how do you not know one of the oldest Pureblood families in Europe?”

“He’s a Pureblood?” Karen asks.

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Sascha says. “Open a history book once in a while, would you?”

“Why would I do that?” Karen says cheekily. “Don’t need history to beat you at Quidditch, do I?”

“Sod off,” Zverev huffs, and both Andrey and Karen giggle, “Hey, Stef’s also the youngest seeker Ravenclaw’s ever had. I wonder if I should try being a seeker myself.”

They launch into that tired old topic, while Dania looks away and tries to not listen. Because he’s got a funny feeling that if he starts listening, he’s going to get pulled under. And he doesn’t want that. Quidditch is just another touchy subject for him in a list of many, and it’s entirely his problem that the list is growing out of proportion.

“Let’s get inside,” is what he says, and they do.

Professor Sprout has already started the class.

+++

It’s not that Dania is insecure. Because he isn’t. He knows he’s clever, cleverer than most, if he’s being honest, and his grades make sure to back this notion up. He’s got excellent marks in all subjects, including Potions — a class he’s better than anyone by far. Even Snape has never once complained about him or tried to humiliate him like he does with the likes of Andrey and Zverev, or even Holger despite him being in Snape’s house. Dania is just too good.

It’s only that his actual magic isn’t quite level with his knowledge. He has no idea if his friends have noticed by now, and if they have — they’ve been tactful enough to not mention it — but it takes Dania a lifetime to go from learning the intricacies of a spell to actually producing it. He’s excellent at Transfiguration, knows all the Gaunt Principles by heart, and yet it takes him twice the time to spell a chair than it does Andrey. And even then, it’s not perfect, not the way it should be, far from what Dania intended it to be.

They’ve all got their strengths and weaknesses, like everyone in the world does, and he knows that Andrey is great at jinxes and pants at defensive spells; knows it’s the other way with Zverev, who can’t produce a mild curse to save his life but is the best in the year at DADA and all kinds of shields. Karen, who mostly doesn’t give a fuck about schoolwork and grades, is still amazing at charms and, surprisingly, Herbology.

Meanwhile, Dania is excellent at all of these. In theory.

In practice, it took him weeks to make a simple Evanesco work. He couldn’t manage Accio for about a month, even though he knew the theory behind it better than everyone. Back in their second year, it took him a lifetime to master Alohomora, which Dania blamed at the stress of having just moved to another country at the time.

Well, now that it’s been more than five years, he’s all out of excuses.

His magic, it seems, is simply bad.

He’d have liked to be able to let it all out on the Quidditch field, like he used to back in the Moscow State Academy for Wizarding Arts, and then at Beauxbaton, where he studied for a year, before finally coming and settling in magical Britain. Quidditch was one of the most important parts of his life, something fun and simple, a safe place he could retreat to when everything else went pear-shaped.

Except, at Hogwarts, he didn’t make it to the Slytherin team.

Try again next year, they said with a smirk, and Dania thought, fine, yes, Roger is amazing and stunningly talented, the best seeker the House had seen in decades, alright, he could admit that. But the next year, after Roger had already left Hogwarts, Novak came and tried out for the seeker position. And he made Roger look like a clumsy beginner.

Dania wasn’t deemed fit for any other spot on the team, not that he wanted it. He’d always been a seeker, ever since he found out he was a wizard, ever since he started flying with the neighbouring kids of the magical district of Moscow. He never fancied playing as anyone else.

A seeker? Andrey said when he first told him that. Aren’t you a little bit too… um, I just didn’t imagine you as one, I suppose.

And, well, no, he isn’t one, not anymore. No, Dania goes to study in the library when all of his friends go to their Quidditch practice, and then pretends to be unbothered when they discuss their matches in front of him.

And sometimes, on a rare occasion that they do study, or simply have to battle the mountains of homework they’ve ignored in hopes of Dania finishing it for them, he leaves them to their grief and sneaks out to the Quidditch field. There’s no broom in his trunk, but he always takes one of the old, out-dated Hogwarts ones, unkept and unpolished, and just flies alone, until his head is no longer full of the upcoming war, or the war he left behind, or his inexplicably faulty magic.

He just flies and all is right with the world.

+++

The Patronus charm is taught to them again during the next lesson, and again the one after that. Mungley seems completely uninterested in teaching them anything else, NEWT be damned. Tsitsipas’ early success seems to have fired him up to push the rest of the students, and so they do it over and over again, tediously repeating the spell until the words have lost all meaning.

Naturally, it’s Tsitsipas who surpasses them all once again.

Before any of them succeed in producing even a slight vapour, Tsitsipas goes and conjures a corporeal bloody thing.

On the other hand, though, his Patronus turns out to be…

“Is that a rat?” Someone from the Slytherin side sneers, and the class guffaws, as Dania spots something tiny and silvery running around the desk.

Tsitsipas looks miserable.

“I think that’s a mouse,” Zverev squints at the thing, mouth agape.

“It’s a hamster,” says Tsitsipas in a voice that cracks.

The entire room roars in laughter. Honestly though, Dania couldn’t imagine a less cool Patronus if he tried.

Even so, he sees clearly the looks of everybody surrounding the guy, particularly his own House mates, and those are not good looks. As much as they laugh at him, the envy is clear is day in the glares the Ravenclaws keep shooting him, in the appraising glances the Slytherins send his way.

As the laughter rings and rolls around the room, Tsitsipas’ silvery hamster flickers and fades out, causing something bitter and melancholic to wrap around Dania’s heart.

An hour later, as everybody is gathering their things, Dania catches Zverev squeezing Tsitsipas’ shoulder, “Never mind them, they’re just envious. Hell, even I am envious, might as well admit that.”

It takes a moment for Dania to realise that Zverev is speaking Russian.

Tsitsipas smiles at him feebly. “I can help you with the spell, if you want, Sasch.”

Tsitsipas’ Russian is quieter and shakier around the edges, but he’s obviously fluent. Dania tries not to stare as he scrambles to think of any backstory he might have heard of Tsitsipas and his family.

Zverev hums. “You know what, I might actually take you up on that.”

And then he turns and catches Dania staring at the two of them. His face scrunches up. “What do you want?”

Dania suppresses a surge of annoyance. God, does he hate Zverev. But before he can think of a proper witty reply, his mouth sputters out:

“Can I join, too?”

Now Tsitsipas is also staring at him as if Dania suddenly transformed into a Grindylow. Dania winces and thinks about backtracking but that would be even more unseemly after he already went and pathetically begged for help.  

“You want me to teach you the Patronus charm?” Tsitsipas says in a low strained voice, as if he was fighting through a Silencio.

“Well, you could give me a few tips, why not,” Dania says, scrambling for the remains of his dignity. He can’t believe he actually proposed that, and right in front of Zverev and his even lamer friend, too.

Tsitsipas’ lips stretch into a tentative smile.

“Alright,” he says, though it sounds a bit like a question.

“Um, okay, then,” Dania mutters awkwardly without looking at either of them. This is so humiliating he can feel his face burn hotter by the second. “I’ll see you. Have a, um, nice day.”

Have a nice day? For fuck’s sake, could he be any more pathetic? Without waiting for a response, he turns and makes a beeline to the Great Hall, disappearing around the corner.

“Arsehole,” he hears Zverev say behind his back.

+++

Andrey finds Sascha and Domi by the fireplace, engrossed in heavy-looking ancient tomes that make Andrey immediately want nothing to do with them. He bloody hates studying.

“What are you two up to?” He plops down at the old rickety chair next to them, looking over Domi’s shoulder. The text in the book is so tiny, he can barely make out the words. Sascha is squinting at it like he’s trying to crack a magic code.

“Reading up on the Patronus charm,” Domi says distractedly.

“Why, though?” Andrey says carelessly, watching the flames dance. “It’s not gonna be on the NEWT, and we’ve still got lots of time.”

“I wanna learn it,” Sascha says in a strangely somber way. “Stef can already produce a corporeal one.”

“Good on him,” Andrey frowns. “Is that why you’re obsessing over it? Because he can do something you can’t?”

Sascha scowls at him. “If he can do it, there’s no reason why I can’t produce the bloody thing. If father hears that Stef did it, while I couldn’t—”

Andrey sighs. Of course, Sascha’s never-ending miserable quest to impress his father and redeem himself for being sorted into what Zverev Senior referred to as “the wrong House”.

“And you?” He addresses Domi, who shrugs.

“I’m just really curious about the charm itself,” he says, not taking his eyes of the book.

“I really doubt you’re gonna learn anything about actually producing Patronus from some book,” Andrey points out.

“Just because you’ve never opened a book in your life, doesn’t mean they’re not worth reading,” Sascha snorts, and, okay, yes, fair. Andrey isn’t much of a reader. He’s more of a learn-on-the-go type of guy, not one for going to the library and locking himself there like Stefanos does. Or Dania.

“You should really get that Ocular Correction Charm done,” he says to Sascha instead, whose eyes are narrowed to the point of turning into slits. “Or, failing that, just get some glasses, mate.”

“Yeah, right,” Sascha sniffs. “I can already imagine my parents’ face when I show up back home wearing some Muggle apparatus.”

“Muggle apparatus,” Andrey repeats incredulously and cracks up. “Right, because being blind to the point of not even seeing the bludger is so much better.”

“I see it just fine, shut up,” Sascha says, but there’s no heat in it. He’s obviously too distracted by the boredom-inducing-looking tome in front of him.

“I wonder what my Patronus is gonna be,” Domi says, ignoring their bickering.

“I only hope mine’s something cooler than a hamster,” Sascha snorts.

“Poor Stefanos,” Andrey sighs in sympathy, thinking back to the class this afternoon. “Imagine managing such a complex charm, earning all those points for Ravenclaw and still having the entire year laugh at you.”

“Yes, well, they’re idiots,” Sascha says haughtily. “Stef is smarter than most of those people and they bloody know it.”

“Besides, it was mostly Slytherins who laughed,” Domi adds, biting his lip thoughtfully.

Sascha looks at Andrey strangely. “Speaking of — your Slytherin friend came up to Stef and asked for tutoring, if you can believe it.”

Andrey frowns. “Which Slytherin friend?”

Sascha scowls harder. “How many of those arseholes are you friends with?” and when Andrey just winks at him, adds: “Medvedev. Couldn’t handle being outdone by Stef, apparently.”

“Really?” Both he and Domi look up at Sascha in wonder. “He asked for tutoring? And he asked… Stefanos, of all people?”

“Well, he’s the only one who’s managed a Patronus, isn’t he?” Domi points out reasonably.

“True, but… Dania isn’t usually one to ask for help. Anyone, even me, and we’ve been friends for years. And he’s not really a fan of Stefanos, either.”

“He’s not a fan of anyone in particular, seems like,” Sascha bites out. “Slytherin arsehole.”

“Quit it, will you?” Andrey rounds on him, starting to get annoyed. “Just because you’re jealous he’s in Slytherin—”

“I’m not jealous!” Sascha bristles immediately, the bloody liar.

“Yes, a likely story,” Andrey snorts, then forces himself to get back to the topic. “So what, Stefanos is gonna teach him the spell, then?”

“I was actually the one who asked him for help,” Sascha says rather petulantly. “And Medvedev was eavesdropping nearby and decided to insert himself into the conversation.”

“So it’s gonna be the three of you?” Domi wonders.

“Hey,” Andrey says, an idea occurring to him. “I wanna join, too! I bet Stefanos is not gonna do the teaching by making me read useless books.”

Sascha stares at him. “A minute ago you didn’t care about Patronus.”

Andrey shrugs. “Yes, well, I’m in for the company. Besides, I’m curious about the dynamics — we’d have a Ravenclaw teaching a Slytherin and two Hufflepuffs. We’d only need a Gryffindor to get a Full House — I might ask Karen to join, too.”

“It’s not a social club, Andrey,” Sascha says with immense patience, like he was speaking to a senseless first-year.

“Domi, what about you, you wanna join, too?” Andrey asks, ignoring Sascha.

“I’d love to, but I already got my hands full with the Herbology electives I’m doing,” he smiles regretfully. “And I’d rather not take on even more stuff in our NEWT year.”

“Oh well, hope you’ll reconsider,” Andrey says, stretching in the cozy armchair. “I bet it’s gonna be so fun!”

“It isn’t supposed to be fun,” Sascha nags again, and Andrey ignores him again. He pulls out his wand and produces a fire inducing charm, watching the flames engorge and flicker violently in the fireplace, before settling.

“Did you—” Sascha’s mouth drops open. “Did you do that nonverbally?!”

“Yep,” Andrey smiles, flicking his wand. “Flitwick taught me the spell, could be used in duelling, too. And all without opening a single book.”

Sascha purses his lips and gets back to his furious reading. Andrey is about to make a couple more jokes at his expense, but then remembers that he needs Sascha to give him his homework to copy, so he shuts his mouth instead and watches the flames twist and dance in the fireplace.

+++

“Oh, you brought someone?” Stefanos says when he and Sascha step into the empty classroom Stefanos has assigned for their practice sessions.

“Come on, you know Andrey,” Sascha rolls his eyes. “He’s here for the company.”

Stefanos stares. “Whose company?”

Andrey cracks up. He could never quite understand how these two could even be friends.

“Andrey’s all about the House unity, friendship and rainbows,” Sascha snorts, sitting himself down on an empty chair.

“Ah, so you believe in utopia?” Stefanos addresses him seriously, and Sascha laughs.

“What’s that?”

“I apologise for my uncultured friend,” Sascha says sardonically. “He believes books are for décor and for propping skewed furniture legs.”

“They are also for making you look clever,” Andrey says. “About the only thing that can manage that, really.”

“I don’t need to look clever,” Sascha says smoothly. “I just am.”

“A likely story,” says Dania’s voice behind him, and Andrey turns to see him walk into the classroom warily, as if expecting a sudden attack.

Sascha’s smug smirk slides right off his face and is immediately replaced by a sour expression as if he’s just bit on a lemon. Stefanos, on the other hand, lights up.

Interesting.

“So, I’m not late, am I?” Dania says nonchalantly, with the air of someone who’s just walked in by accident.

“No, no, everyone’s on time,” Stefanos rushes to say, his eyes twinkling. Andrey stares. “Um, I. I reckon, we should, um. Take out wands out?”

“Is that a question?” Sascha says pointedly. “Just tells us what to do, mate, you’re the boss here.”

Stefanos looks dumbfounded at being called so. His usually dreamy eyes travel around the room with a panicky sort of dread, as if trying to find someone else to take the leadership role for him.

“Well. I suppose,” he finally concedes, his face burning red.

Andrey knows there’s family history between Sascha and Stef, going back decades and starting with their parents, knows all about how Sascha ended up in the UK and why, and stillhe can’t believe those two are friends.

Andrey takes out his wand. It gets immediately warm in his hand.

“So, first of all,” Stefanos starts uncertainly, “here’s a little bit of of theory.”

“Ah, come on,” Andrey whines and sees Sascha send him a triumphant look.

“Did you by any chance get this theory from a book?” Sascha says with a shit-eating grin.

“No, actually, from my father,” Stefanos says, and Andrey sticks his tongue out at Sascha. “He taught me the theory behind most spells. And seeing that the Patronus charm can be categorised as Mind Magic—”

“As what?” Andrey interrupts, and Stefanos blinks.

“Mind Magic. Same as Memory Charms, Occlumency, Legilimency—”

“And what are those?”

He sees both Dania and Sascha rolls their eyes, the know-it-all bastards, but Stefanos stays remarkably unperturbed.

“Occlumency is a school of magic aimed at protecting your mind from both inner and outer interference.”

“Ah, so like meditation?” Andrey says.

Stefanos blinks again. “I don’t know what that is.”

Sascha is frowning, too, the damn Pureblood.

So it’s Dania, who says, “Yes. Kind of like meditation. Or yoga.”

“What’s yoga?” says Sascha, frowning.

Stefanos sighs. “Maybe we should move on. Those of us here who are not from magical families can find out all the relevant terminology after this… session.”

Dania, as the only Muggleborn present, scowls silently, his fists clenching and unclenching, as if Stefanos has somehow insulted him.

“As I was saying,” Stefanos continues, “the tradition of practicing Mind Magic has run in my family for many generations. Father mastered Occlumency by the age of fourteen — his own father taught him. In Aristotle Academy—”

“What’s—” Andrey starts.

“A wizarding school in Athens,” Stefanos explains patiently. “In the academy it helped him focus on his studies and on playing Quidditch.”

“Really?” Andrey perks up, because now Stefanos has got his attention. “How so? What position did he play?”

“He was a Seeker, like me,” Stefanos says. Next to Andrey, Dania is letting out loud huffs of air, like the conversation was somehow hurting him. “And yes. It helped him concentrate on the game, ignore the outside distractions and focus on the Snitch.”

“Brilliant,” says Andrey. Perhaps, he should look up this Occlumency thing.

“Anyway. The Patronus charm draws on a similar kind of magical energy. It is traditionally taught that a wizard should achieve a perfect mental state of happiness, aided by the positive memories and experiences, but my father actually found out that using the emotions proved much more helpful.”

“How so?” Sascha asks him, frowning, his wand gripped tightly in his hand.

“Well, for starters, you wouldn’t have to possess any actual happy memories,” says Stefanos thoughtfully.

“Who on earth is that poor sod who doesn’t have a single happy memory?” Andrey laughs, but Sascha shoots him a sharp look.

“Shut the hell up, I’m trying to bloody listen!”

There’s actual heat in it, so Andrey promptly shuts his mouth, staring at him. Sascha looks intense, way too somber for the conversation at hand, almost… desperate.

Andrey has a very vague idea of what goes on in his Tottenham Road family home during the summers, but no matter how vague it is, he knows for sure that something very wrong happens there.

“Secondly,” Stefanos goes on, “the use of emotion also enables imagination and the creativity that comes with it. Which can produce a much more potent feeling necessary for the spell, than a memory otherwise could.”

“Okay,” Andrey says, impatient to get to the practising part. “So we should use a happy emotion, then, got it.”

“Not just any emotion,” Stefanos adds. “A very powerful one. For a lack of one, use your imagination instead. Perhaps, imagine your greatest wish coming to life. Something you really want, more than anything else in the world. That’s what I did.”

Andrey desperately tries to think of something he wishes for and comes up short. He wants to pass his NEWTs, but he’ll live if that doesn’t happen. He’d like for all of his friends to like each other, or, failing that, to at least tolerate one another, but it’s not his biggest wish by far, either.

He wants to be a professional Quidditch player, he remembers. Now this, this is something he wants more than anything, something Andrey strives for without having a backup plan. Becoming a professional Quidditch Beater would definitely make him the happiest person alive.

Energised by the idea, he outstretches his wand arm, convinced it would work: “Expecto Patronum!”

Nothing happens.

“Your wand movement needs a little work,” Stefanos says gently and grips his wrist. He manipulates Andrey’s hand into gentler, more sophisticated arks.

“Expecto Patronum!” says Dania next to him, but nothing there, either.

Sascha tries next and looks deflated when his Patronus fails to materialise.

“Don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work at once,” says Stefanos, running a hand through his hair. “It didn’t work for me, either.”

“Can you show us how you do it again?” Sascha says, and Stefanos turns a redder shade at once.

“I— you already saw—”

“We promise we won’t laugh,” Andrey reassures him. Stefanos looks even more miserable.

“It’s— I just— I had a hamster as a child—” he starts explaining fervently, as if making excuses, and Andrey feels bad for him.

“Mate, it’s alright, you have a cool Patronus,” he says, “who cares what animal it is? What’s important is that it is an animal instead of some foggy shape, and only after a month of trying.”

Stefanos smiles weakly. He pulls out his own wand, black and long and thin. Andrey watches his movement carefully, as Stefanos says the spell.

A silvery hamster materialises on the desk next to him, looking around curiously. Mesmerised, Andrey reaches out to touch it, but it disappears before he can.

“Why did it go away?” Dania says in an odd voice. Andrey sees him looking at the spot where the hamster has just been with a weird melancholic look on his face.

“It requires a great deal of concentration to keep it up,” Stefanos explains, red in the face. “It’s still a little too complicated for me.”

An hour of useless wand-waving later, their voices gone hoarse from repeatedly shouting the spell (even though Stefanos has insisted there was no need to yell), the three of them put their wands back into their pockets.

“It’s okay,” Stefanos hurries to reassure them, though he is looking specifically at Dania. Andrey turns to see if Sascha has noticed it, too, but Sascha’s eyes are glued to the desk in front of him, looking so crestfallen that Andrey’s heart goes out to him.

Dania, on the other hand, is seething.

“Well this is all useless, then,” he snaps, tucking his wand in and glaring at Stefanos as if he personally offended him.

“Dania,” Andrey warns, but Dania is already consumed by one of his habitual fits of rage.

“I don’t know why I ever thought this was a good idea!” He bites off, narrowing his eyes.

“You’re not the only one who failed to do it,” Stefanos points out, looking hurt, and Dania flinches. Andrey thinks it must have been the word failed that Stefanos so inadvertently used, without knowing just how much it triggers Dania.

“And what exactly does that prove besides the fact that you’re a rubbish tutor?” He growls, pointing an accusing finger at Stefanos.

“Fuck off!” Sascha snaps back, standing up. “It’s not his fault that you’re a talentless moron!”

“Guys, guys—” Andrey tries to interfere before the situation spins even more out of control, but maybe it was doomed to from the start.

“Oh that’s rich!” Dania hisses now glaring at Sascha. “Remind me, weren’t you the only one in our year who couldn’t produce a simple Incendio until you went home where Daddy had to teach you?” Andrey winces, because Dania shouldn’t, shouldn’t have mentioned Sascha’s father — “Oh, hell, what can one even expect from a talentless Hufflepuff?”

Yes, Dania has always possessed the uncanny ability to poke right where it hurts.

Sascha’s eyes flash. His arm flies out, faster than a lightning bolt, his wand pointing at Dania’s forehead.

“Sascha!”

“Screwed anyone over today yet, you filthy Slytherin twat?” Sascha yells, his wand hand shaking ever so slightly.

Dania takes out his own wand and points it right back at Sascha.

“What are you gonna do?” He smirks. “Attack me with a shield? Since we all know you can’t produce anything worthwhile?”

“And you? Seeing as you can’t produce anything at all,” Sascha bites out, and the muscle in Dania’s jaw twitches. “But I could simply punch you in the face, if that’s what you prefer.”

Dania’s wand arm stretches back, ready to fire a spell, and Andrey’s had enough.

“Protego!”

The shield is weak and shimmering — Andrey’s always been pants at defensive magic — but it’s enough to force the two of them several feet apart.

“Are you insane?” He yells at the both of them. “You want to get a detention? You wanna get us stripped of all house points? I’ve had it with you two, Merlin’s balls!”

Dania turns and storms out of the room, his fists clenched at his sides. Sascha is glaring at the door he’s just disappeared behind, his eyes firing off Avada Kedavra’s after Dania.

Stefanos’ face is white and scared, but he hasn’t even drawn his own wand out, standing there in the middle of the classroom, paralysed.

Andrey sighs.

“So,” Sascha says with heavy sarcasm. “Same time next week?”

+++

“Will you stop it?” Andrey snaps at Sascha over lunch.

Sascha flinches, caught red-handed, then pulls on his bullshit I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about expression that Andrey just hates.

“What?”

“Be bloody proud of your House!” Andrey fixes him with a glare. “Stop pining for Gryffindor or Slytherin or bloody Ravenclaw and be glad you’re here!”

Sascha glares at his plate where chicken wings lie untouched.

“I’m not—”

“Like hell you’re not!” Andrey chews him out, “As if I can’t see you staring longingly at the Gryffindor flag. It’s really bloody insulting, Sasch!”

Sascha has the audacity to look outraged.

“How is it insulting to you that I want to be in a different House?”

“I beg your pardon!” Booms Fat Friar who is gliding by and is so outraged to hear Sascha say the words that he stops and hovers intimidatingly above them. “Have I misheard you, young gentleman? For it is a great dishonour to wish yourself upon another house—”

“Yeah, yeah, sod off,” Sascha waves him off. Fat Friar gapes at him silently for a few moments, apparently shocked beyond words by such outrageous disrespect, so Andrey sends him an apologetic smile.

“It’s insulting because you constantly bring us all down,” Andrey says when Fat Friar has sulkily zoomed off. “Because you think that Hufflepuff is not good enough for you. As if none of us are good enough for you.”

Sascha shakes his head. “Well, what about your buddy Medvedev then?” His expression turns ugly. “He said—”

“Yes, I’ve heard what he said,” Andrey cuts him off and rubs his eyes wearily. Why does he always feel like the only sane bloke in this bloody school? “And I’ll have words with him. He was way out of line, too.”

His promise to stick it to Dania seems to have pacified Sascha, because he relaxes, if only a little bit.

“Father says—”

“Oh for Merlin’s sake!” Andrey cuts him off again, annoyed beyond reason. “Not this again! Your dad didn’t even go to Hogwarts, what the hell does he even know about the Houses?”

“He knows enough,” Sascha mutters, eyeing his chicken wings without much appetite, “to say that only leftovers and near-squibs get sorted into Hufflepuff.”

“Well he can fuck right off, then,” Andrey snaps, offended, though he’s not sure if he’s more hurt for himself or for Sascha. “Who cares what he thinks?”

Sascha raises his eyebrows at him, and yes, the answer’s obvious enough.

There’s such a miserable look on his face, though, that Andrey can’t stand it.

“You know what?” He says in a gentler tone. “You said he can’t produce a Patronus himself, right? So here’s what we’re gonna do — we gonna go back to Stefanos and we’re gonna learn to produce the best bloody Patronuses in Hogwarts. That’ll show him, “leftovers and near-squibs”, my arse!”

Sascha’s biting his lip, and Andrey sees he’s trying hard not to look too amused.

“Sounds like a plan,” he says, and his eyes are warm and blue like the enchanted sky of the Great Hall above them.

+++

“Mr. Tsitsipas,” Snape drawls, and Dania can’t help whipping around to sneak a look. “Care to inform me what this disgusting slimy goo in your cauldron is?”

The entire class stops their ministrations to stare at another poor sod Snape has chosen as the day’s scapegoat. Tsitsipas looks blankly between Snape and his own cauldron, as if he hasn’t understood the question.

“It’s Baruffio’s Brain Elixir, sir,” Tsitsipas says quietly. “I thought it was supposed to look this disgusting.”

A few students snicker. Snape’s eyes flash dangerously.

“As a punishment for such egregious incompetence, I would have made you take a sip of that so-called potion, Tsitsipas, but alas, even if it had been brewed correctly, you have no brain to stimulate in the first place.”

The Slytherin around them giggle.

“Twenty points off Ravenclaw,” Snape announces with a smirk. “If you spent a modicum of the time listening to my instructions that you spend on making your hair look pretty, you would have known to add powdered Bicorn Horn.”

At least, unlike Snape’s, Tsitsipas’ hair looks nice, Dania thinks, turning back to his own cauldron. All curly and soft.

Then he reexamines the thought and almost drops the Bloodroot into his potion. He sneaks a glance back at Tsitsipas who is frowning at his cauldron like he was trying to fix the potion by staring at it, his hair pretty and golden around his face.

“Mr. Medvedev!” Snape says sharply. “Stop fooling around and get back to your potion before it meets the same fate as Mr. Tsitsipas’”

“Sorry, sir,” Dania mumbles and forces the thought of Tsitsipas’ stupid hair out of his mind.

+++

They don’t leave.

The images of Tsitsipas’ curls follow him all throughout the day’s classes, keeping him so preoccupied with trying to not think about it that he ends up transfiguring McGonagall’s matchstick into a golden piglet instead of, you know, a proper pink one.

At Charms, he fails to realise that the class has been over for more than a minute, until Flitwick calls him out and points out that everybody else has left.

At Défense Against the Dark Arts, he can’t produce a single spell out loud, let alone nonverbally. And then Mungley devotes the last thirty minutes of the class to the blasted Patronus charm again, and that effectively zaps the remains of his good mood.

What’s worse — Andrey won’t even talk to him. Which is fair, Dania has to admit, after what he said about his House.

“Andruysh,” Dania catches up to him after the DADA class. “Hey, Andrey, wait.”

Andrey fixes him with a cold look which is such a rare occurrence on his face that Dania flails in his apologies.

“I didn’t mean what I said,” he tells Andrey haltingly. “About Hufflepuff.”

“Did you?” Andrey says flatly.

“I only— Zverev said—”

“Is there an apology somewhere in this rant?” Andrey says irritably. “Or just excuses and deflections to Sascha?”

Dania shuts his mouth, his chest feeling tight. He hates how vulnerable he feels, even in front of Andrey, the guy he’s known since he was seven.

“Sorry,” he forces out, the word so tiny he barely even hears himself.

Thankfully, Andrey doesn’t make him repeat himself.

“That’s better,” he says good-naturedly. “Have you apologised to Stefanos yet?”

The name almost makes him twitch. “Why would I?”

Andrey’s gaze turns almost pitying. “Oh Dania. You can’t possibly be serious.”

“I only told him the truth!” Dania argues stubbornly, even though he can admit he might have been a little extreme in his overreaction.

“What truth? He offered to help and he delivered!” Andrey points out reasonably, but Dania doesn’t want him to make sense. “He didn’t promise you a corporeal Patronus on your first try, did he? And even if he had, you had no business talking to him the way you did. And to Sascha, too, by the way.”

Fuck Zverev, Dania thinks, though he is not about to say that to Andrey’s face now. He values Andrey’s friendship too much to start in on Zverev again, right after his apologies, his pride be damned.

“You should really work on your impulse control,” Andrey says, looking at him strangely. Belatedly, Dania realises that his hands are shaking from all the suppressed rage and humiliation of this day alone. “And your anger management, too.”

“So it’s okay for Zverev to point his wand—”

“Merlin help me!” Andrey exclaims, and Dania promptly shuts up. “I just can’t with you two, you absolute wankers!”

“Hey!”

“Dania, stop worrying about what Sascha does and start worrying about yourself. The same goes for him, too. But really, mate, you can’t just explode at people and call them names because you feel upset about a spell.”

Dania is self-aware enough to not argue this point.

“I’ll see you at Herbology tomorrow, yeah?” Andrey claps him on the back. “Try not to be an arsehole in the meantime!”

+++

Dania doesn’t apologise to Zverev (because fuck him), but he does feel bad about the Tsitsipas situation. Which is why he keeps circling the lad from a distance, wishing for means to start a conversation in a way that wouldn’t require him to admit guilt and/or apologise. Because one apology per annum is more than enough for him, and he’s already filled the quota.

The opportunity presents itself when Holger mentions some spell for “reading minds” on their way to Transfiguration, Tsitsipas walking a few feet behind them, and Dania takes a huge breath and says as casually as he can pull off: “Aren’t you talking about Legilimency? I hear Tsitsipas is an expert.”

Tsitsipas’ head flies up at hearing his own name. He goes immediately red in the face.

“I’m not an expert,” he is quick to say, as if he was accused of a crime. “I just know the principles behind it.”

“My mother is a great Legilimens,” Holger says in the same kind of tone that Dania heard Malfoy use when saying ‘My father will hear about this.’ “She studied under McDougal himself, the greatest Legilimens in Britain.”

“I thought Voldemort was the best Legilimens in Britain,” Tsitsipas says blankly, and the entire group of students stop and turn sharply to stare at him. Dania wishes the earth would open up and swallow him, because even he — a foreigner — knows well enough to not use Voldemort’s name in public in this country.

“Well he’s gone, isn’t he?” Holger says after a moment of shock. “And after the Dark Lord, McDougal is the next best thing.”

Dania hates the fact that everyone in his house calls Voldemort The Dark Lord, which he is pretty sure was what the Death Eaters used to call him. It sets him on edge in a way he can’t even explain to himself.

“My family is more into Occlumency,” Tsitsipas says with a note of pride. “My Mom taught Petros and I to occlude before we even started Hogwarts.”

“Is that hard to learn?” Dania asks nonchalantly, flipping his wand. Tsitsipas is not looking at him, though, addressing his own shoes instead.

“Well, I suppose, that depends. I’ve been learning it since I was a child, before I even realised I was consciously doing it, so I can’t really say.”

He feels a familiar sense of anger twisting with bitter jealousy in his chest, so all-consuming it’s about to erupt out of him. It’s fine, he tells himself in an attempt to crush it at the root, just another thing I was deprived it, being a bloody Muggleborn.

There are some experiences he never got to live, some opportunities he was never given, if only because he never knew he could be given them, not until after it was too late. An entire culture of people that he’ll never entirely feel a part of, not really, not like Tsitsipas or Zverev do. Feels it nagging at him every time Holger mentions a wizarding fairytale like Dania is supposed to somehow know it, or each time Nick makes a reference to this or that wizarding tradition that Dania has no clue about.

Russia, France, Britain, what-the-fuck-ever. He’ll always be a foreigner everywhere.

He is consumed by a hatred so sudden it knocks the breath out of him, makes him feel dizzy, drunk.

With a loud crash, Tsitsipas’ bag falls to the floor, the strap on his shoulder suddenly tearing apart. Everybody turns to stare at it, as Tsitsipas goes ghostly-white and bends down to pick up his numerous scattered books.

Dania’s mouth goes dry. Was that— did he just—

Did Dania just had a fit of accidental magic? Like a goddamn bloody child?

No one seems to have noticed anything — apparently having considered the bag a simple accident — but Dania’s shaking on the insides, uncomfortably aware of his wild magic swelling and rolling in his stomach like a tsunami wave.

“My Dad said Professor Snape is actually a master of Occlumency,” says Casper Ruud, the naïve Hufflepuff. “I wonder if he’d be willing to start a class.”

“Casper, mate, have you met Snape?” Andrey laughs. “Can you imagine even for a second that Snape would be willing to do something nice for anyone? Out of the goodness of his heart?”

Casper concedes the point. “Could you learn it out of a book then?”

It’s a long moment before Tsitsipas realises that the question is addressed to him. He clutches his damaged bag to his chest and keeps switching between going beet-red and turning deadly pale in a manner that’s a little extreme.

“I wouldn’t know,” he says after gulping audibly. “I never had to learn it by a book. But I reckon it definitely wouldn’t be useless, at least for the theory.”

He could teach me, Dania thinks detachedly. If I ask him, he will teach me, and he will be very patient, too. I could just ask.

He doesn’t.

+++

“I want to become an Animagus,” Sascha’s voice declares from behind the curtain, jerking Andrey back to full wakefulness.

He sighs, regretfully letting go of a half-dream he was slipping into, and pulls the curtain back. Sascha is sitting cross-legged on his bed in nothing but his pyjama bottoms, looking somberly up at the ceiling.

“What, right now?”

Sascha snorts and snaps out of his brooding state.

“Even I’m not that good,” he says haughtily. Andrey yawns, leaning back against his pillows.

“Then it can wait until morning,” he grumbles and tries to pull the curtain back down, but Sascha is quicker. The curtain levitates right up to the ceiling, out of Andrey’s reach.

Andrey glares. “I see you’ve been practicing non-verbal spells, then.”

“And I’ve mastered them to perfection.”

“Is that why you’re obsessed with that Animagus idea? Because you’re bored?”

“Boredom: the desire for desires,” Sascha says very poignantly.

“That’s very profound,” Andrey yawns again. “Very clever, Sasch.”

“It is, because Tolstoy said it,” Sascha looks at him in amusement.

“Who?”

“Oh dear,” Sascha looks up to the heavens. “In moments like this, I feel more Russian than you. And more Muggle than you, too, to be honest.”

Andrey is getting tired of all these useless talks. “Whatever. I’m going back to sleep.”

“Wait,” Sascha says, and there’s an odd note in his voice that makes Andrey pause, take a deep breath. He looks back at Sascha. “Let’s do it together.”

“Do what together?”

“Become Animagus,” Sascha says solemnly. His wand is casting sophisticated Lumos shadows across his face, and Andrey is suddenly transfixed. In this light, he looks handsome but tortured, and also half-mad, like there’s a darkness inside of him that only seeps out at night. It scares him, a little.

Andrey is not afraid to hear about Sascha’s home, he does not flinch at Sascha’s tics or obscenely loud nightmares. Andrey understands things without Sascha needing to explain them. Andrey doesn’t need to ask why he invites Sascha over to his place every summer, but Sascha has never invited him once in return.

He thinks back to their DADA lesson in third year, where Andrey’s boggart turned out to be his new Nimbus 2001, broken to pieces, which was an easy enough fix with the Ridikkulus charm, while Sascha’s boggart was something no one else could see, but that made Sascha sob and heave and leave the classroom in a state of maniacal hysteria.

Andrey is not stupid. Still, he wants to ask, what’s happening to you?

What’s going on at that Tottenham Road house?

But Sascha would just close up and clam up like a bloody prisoner of war and Andrey wouldn’t get a single word out of him.

“That’s illegal,” is what he says instead, not that this would appeal to Sascha’s character, because he’s never even been an upstanding, law-abiding Hogwarts student.

“So what?” Sascha says, proving Andrey right. “It’s not like anybody has to know.”

There’s a desperate edge to his voice that makes Andrey squirm. He doesn’t have it in himself to refuse Sascha outright.

“Let’s talk about it in the morning, alright?”

+++

Sascha’s sudden obsession with Animagi doesn’t decrease by dawn, and is only interrupted by Stefanos Tsitsipas, who comes up to the Hufflepuff table in the middle of breakfast to ask:

“Can I sit here?”

Andrey — as do the rest of the Hufflepuff House — stares at him. Stefanos points to the bench under Andrey’s arse, as if Andrey didn’t know what sitting meant.

“Um, sure, why not?”

Sascha is surprised into pausing his solemn and passionate speech about the advantages of being an Animagi that Andrey has, frankly, heard enough of. He scoots to the side, letting Stef sit down between them.

“Aren’t you in Ravenclaw?” Alex, the fifth year, squints at him across the table.

“Yes,” Stefanos says, blinking owlishly, then adds: “wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”

Alex looks at him like one would at a rambling lunatic in an asylum. “Um. Okay, then.”

While Sascha is cracking up, Stefanos turns his entire body to Andrey.

“You are Daniil Medvedev’s friend, aren’t you?”

Sascha comically chokes on his pumpkin juice. Andrey bites the inside of his cheek, “I am. Why?”

“Can you tell me about him?”

He hasn’t even lowered his voice as Andrey would have, asking a question like this — no, Stefanos goes into the conversation at a standard volume, up for anyone sitting beside them to overhear this juicy bit of gossip.

“What do you want to know?”

Stefanos blinks slowly, his long, long eyelashes functioning as very effective windmills.

“I just— I want to understand him.”

Sascha snorts loudly. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

Stefanos turns to regard him, “You hate him, though, right?”

“How on earth did you pick up on that?” Sascha drawls, dripping with sarcasm. Stefanos purses his lips. “He’s an obnoxious arrogant bastard.”

“So you have a lot in common then?” Stefanos says, smiling very slightly.

Sascha makes an odd sound that is half snort half grumble. Stefanos loses his interest in him immediately and turns back to Andrey.

“I know that he’s the best in our year in Potions,” he says, “and that he’s Russian and only came to Hogwarts in second year. But that’s it.”

“He’s only ‘the best’ because Snape kisses his arse,” Sascha riles up again, stabbing his omelette so furiously with his fork that chunks of it go flying around the table. Andrey sighs and vanishes a stray piece of omelette from his arm. “Because he’s one of his little Slytherin snakes!”

Stefanos doesn’t seem to have even heard Sascha’s whining. He’s fixed Andrey with a look of profound interest and seems about ready to take out his quill and start scrambling notes about Dania’s character.

“Well, we both come from Moscow,” Andrey starts. “We met in a Muggle school, he was in my year. He didn’t know he was a wizard back then, and my parents made me go to a Muggle preschool anyway, even though they knew perfectly well who I was.” Andrey snorts at the memory of a seven-year-old Dania who, in a bout of mindless rage that provoked his accidental magic, spelled Masha’s hair completely off her head. Andrey couldn’t believe it back then, how lucky he was to run into another wizard in the Muggle first grade, even into one who had no idea what he was. “I told him that those little tricks he was doing were in fact accidental magic. I told him all about the Moscow Academy — that’s where my Mum went and where we were supposed to study — and that’s about it, yeah. We just became friends.”

Stefanos is listening so carefully it’s like Andrey is handing out NEWT questions. “And then you both immigrated here?”

“Well, no.” Andrey hesitates, unsure if he should talk about it now. “We went to the Moscow Academy first — see, in Russia, you start the Magic school at nine, not at eleven like here. And then the… political situation got worse, and my parents decided it was best for me to leave Russia. My Mum knows Dumbledore personally,” he sighs, a familiar burst of sadness and nostalgia rolling inside him as he talks about his parents, “so he agreed to accept me here. I got my letter like everybody else did. But Dania — his family went to France first, he actually studied in Beauxbaton for an entire year.”

“Fascinating,” Stefanos comments without a trace of sarcasm, as Sascha behind him shoots him a murderous look. “He speaks French then?”

“Yeah,” Andrey looks down at his coffee that has gone cold and distractedly spells it hot again. “But then they ended up in the UK, too, but… I shouldn’t be the one to tell you about that. Really, you should ask Dania himself if you wanna know his biography.”

“Dania,” Stefanos repeats slowly and carefully, as if tasting the word on his tongue.

“I’m doing fine by the way, mate, thanks for asking,” Sascha says irritably, the omelette on his plate turned into a mushy mess.

Stefanos gives him an appraising look. “No, you’re not. You seem to be on a verge of a psychotic break.”

“Uh,” Andrey coughs loudly to mask his growing discomfort. He has no idea what Sascha and Stefanos’ dynamic is like between the two of them, but he wants no part of this conversation. He sneaks a glance at Sascha who looks both dumbfounded and angry, and Stefanos who is examining the charmed Hogwarts ceiling with distant interest, as though they were talking about the weather. “I gotta go— uh, pop back into the common room, I forgot my Charms textbook.”

But neither of them seems to have paid him any mind. Just as Sascha opens his mouth with a no doubt furious retort on his tongue, Andrey slides off the bench and almost runs to the door.

At least Sascha’s forgotten about his Animagus idea for the time being.

+++

Dania is about to succumb to utter, all-consuming panic, because his magic won’t work. It just won’t.

He’s been brandishing his wand for the entire hour of Transfiguration, and the only thing it does is erupt weak sparks and vibrate slightly in his hand. To test it out, he takes a deep breath and casts a Lumos — the simplest, easiest spell he thinks of — and even though it works, the light it shines is weak and flickering.

What the fuck is happening to him?!

The dread and panic are rooted so deeply in his brain, he doesn’t even notice Tsitsipas approaching him after class. He hovers by Dania’s side, his wand still in his hand, his blue Ravenclaw tie hanging loose off his neck.

“Can I see your wand?” Tsitsipas says to him.

Dania is momentarily distracted from his panic.

“Huh?”

“Your wand,” Tsitsipas repeats slower and points a finger to it, as if Dania was slow on the uptake. “Can I take a look? I’ve never seen a wand quite like this!”

Wondering if Tsitsipas makes a habit of coming up to people and asking to look at the most intimate and private thing in their possession, Dania still can’t quell the urge to indulge him. The thought of Tsitsipas examining Dania’s wand with his thin, long and elegant fingers sends a shiver down his spine.

“Knock yourself out,” he says, holding the wand out to him.

Tsitsipas takes it with great care, as though it was made of the finest China. He turns it this way and that, runs his finger over the polish.

“It isn’t like any wand I’ve seen before,” he gives a verdict, eyes narrowed at the handle. “What even is this material?”

“Birch,” he says shortly, inexplicably embarrassed. Tsitsipas’ wand looks like it could’ve belonged to kings and queens, while Dania’s is an approximation of a log. “And, um, Kikimora heartstring. For a core.”

“Merlin,” Tsitsipas whistles. “I don’t even know what a Kikimora is. I shall ask my mother, she might do.” He meets Dania’s eyes for a nanosecond before looking down again. “Who is the wandmaker?”

“Borovskiy,” Dania says, not sure why Tsitsipas is even asking, since he doubts any of this information tells him anything. “He’s the main wandmaker in Russia.”

“How come Andrey doesn’t have one like yours?”

“Andrey broke his after he moved here,” Dania says with annoyance. “So he had to get a new one from Olivander.”

“Oh,” Tsitsipas hums, fingering Dania’s wand with almost obscene care. “Sascha’s was made by Gregorovic, but he uses more traditional materials. But I’ve never seen a wand made of birch tree.”

“Well, it’s just a tree,” Dania snaps and snatches his wand back from Tsitsipas’ long elegant fingers. “No different than whatever it is yours is made of.”

Tsitsipas stares at him with a slight frown, his head tipped sideways like a dog trying to catch a distant sound.

“I don’t understand,” he says, squinting at Dania. “Are you embarrassed by your wand?”

“Of course not!” Dania lies, but even if he’d believed it, the answer would’ve sounded lame. As it is, the words come out sounding inexplicably high and jittery, not helped by a sudden influx of salt gathering in the corners of his eyes.

He blinks rapidly, and turns away, his eyes burning.

His magic, which he couldn’t summon during the classes for the life of him, vibrates and shimmers in his very heart.

What the hell is happening to him?

“I was going to ask you if you wanted any more help with the Patronus,” Stefanos says, staring expressionlessly into his soul. “But it seems like you might rather want to use some help with Occlumency, instead.”

He is vibrating. Shimmering with a dark, dangerous, bitter kind of magic that he can feel in his teeth, suffocating him, making him dizzy. He feels like should he lift his wand and use Aguamenti right now — he’ll end up summoning the entire Hogwarts Lake along with the giant squid in it. He is humiliated, angry, bitter, wild. So is his magic.

He needs help.

“Okay,” he chokes out and feels the wave of mighty magic pass, leaving him absolutely exhausted. His hands are shaking, and he hasn’t even produced a single spell. “Yeah. I’d… I’d appreciate that.”

Tsitsipas smiles at him brightly. “Brilliant.” He turns a purplish-red shade in the face, “Maybe… Maybe we can even become friends.”

And without giving Dania even a chance to respond, he turns and wanders off on his addled way.

Dania stares after him for a long time, fingers reflexively squeezing his wand.

He is suddenly pretty sure that friends is the last thing he wants to be with Tsitsipas.

+++

So he fucked up his Patronus lesson Tsitsipas was kind enough to offer him, so what — you get emotional, you get upset, you lose control. Things like that happen sometimes. But only sometimes.

Which is why this time, he is going to make bloody sure to keep himself in check around Tsitsipas. Don’t be an arsehole, Andrey’s told him, and Dania intends on taking that advice.

He spends the entirety of the Charms class the next day spacing out and wondering what it would be like for Tsitsipas to teach him Occlumency, up to the point that Flitwick actually has to deduct points from Slytherin for Dania’s vacant state. He ignores Holger’s and Gaston’s heated glares and Gryffindor’s gleeful snickering, and instead tries to think of a casual and not-at-all pathetic way to approach Tsitsipas to get more details about their upcoming private lessons.

Christ. That sounds dirty even inside his own mind.

He shouldn’t have worried though, because at lunch, Tsitsipas announces himself.

And he chooses to do so not by speaking to Dania like a normal person, oh no — he does it instead by sending Dania a charmed little yellow bird, a piece of paper held tightly in its tiny beak. Naturally, the entirety of the Great Hall follows the bird with interested eyes, flying across the hall and sitting itself in Dania’s plate, right on top of his toast.

“What’s that?” Bublik immediately asks, eyeballing the bird with suspicion. Feeling his face go traitorously red, Dania turns to the Ravenclaw table and glares at Tsitsipas who has the audacity to smile and wave at him.

“I don’t know,” he lies, detaching the letter from the stubborn bird. As soon as it lets go, it flies up into the air and back to the Ravenclaw table. Dania watches it with bitter jealousy: he still can’t produce a satisfactory animal simulacrum, and here’s Tsitsipas casually transfiguring his fork into a perfect canary.

The note is short and to the point: Does tomorrow at six work for you? We could meet up in the Charms class, Prof. Flitwick gave his blessings!

He rolls his eyes at Tsitsipas’ need to refer to Flitwick by his honorific even in a private, personal letter. Then he looks over at the guy — who’s still smiling at him from across the Great Hall — and gives him a curt nod.

Tomorrow’s actually perfect — Hufflepuff’s gonna be at a Quidditch practice, so no nosy Andrey or Zverev to sniff about his business. And the other Slytherins know better than to ask him personal questions about his whereabouts by now.

He turns back to his toast, ignoring Bublik’s nagging glances, and sips his tea.

He isn’t sure what to think about the upcoming lessons, but — if he’s halfway honest with himself — he can’t bloody wait.

+++

“Andreeeeeeey!” Sascha whines when Andrey misses the Quaffle, so loudly that his screechy voice carries over the wind. Andrey wants to glare at him, but doesn’t, because he feels bad enough as it is — he’s the bloody Team Captain, he can’t be missing easy balls like this because he’s got into his own head.

Sometimes, more often than he’d like to admit, he wishes Quidditch weren’t a team sport.

Just as he thinks that, a bludger hits him square in the head.

“The fuck were you thinking?!” Sascha demands upon catching him less than twenty feet from the ground. “Come on, mate, you can’t be playing like this against Gryffindor next week, that Potter kid is gonna eat us alive!”

“What does he have to do with anything?” Andrey snaps, getting safely on his feet and rubbing at the sore spot at the back of his head. “He’s a seeker, it’s not like he’s gonna be influencing my game in any way!”

“You’re gonna be affecting mine!” Sascha points out with a bitchy expression on his face. “Because instead of focusing on the Bludgers, I’m gonna be surveilling your daydreaming arse!”

“I don’t need your coddling!” Andrey bites off. He grabs his Nimbus and storms off to the changing room. “I’m the bloody Team Captain, Sasch! I’ll somehow manage without your supervision, believe it or not.”

Sascha trails after him, “Yeah, yeah, and then you’re gonna end the match by getting yourself stuck in the Hospital Wing again, because you’ll have missed Khachanov’s bludger to your head.”

“That happened once!” Andrey snaps, stung. “Worry about your own bloody game, will you?”

“Oh, I will,” Sascha says darkly. “Apparently, I worry enough for the two of us.”

Andrey stops in his tracks and rounds on him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Guys, guys!” Domi appears, apparently sensing the tension. He inserts himself between Andrey and Sascha, his expression one of benevolent amusement. “Come on, Sasch, get off his arse, who doesn’t get hit by a stray bludger once in a while? And Andrey, just be sure to have your wand ready next time — I’m not sure how on earth Sascha caught you in time, but he can’t possibly manage that again.”

And Andrey wants to tell the both of them to go to hell and to stop coddling and patronising him, because he’s as great as ever, but he can barely move his mouth, as if hit by a Tongue-Tying curse. Because the truth is — he hasn’t been daydreaming and he wasn’t distracted.

The truth is — Andrey just isn’t good enough.

He’s seeing it more clearly than ever now — however much he trains, however obsessively he flies till late at night, perfecting his Wronski Feint, however he simply yearns to be the very best — he’s getting routinely outplayed by boys barely in their third year, young stars like Carlos and Arthur and, naturally, Harry Potter himself.

And no matter how much Andrey wants to hate the idea Domi’s just brought up — Andrey has to admit that Sascha won’t be there to catch him the next time, or the time after that, because, like Andrey has pointed out himself — Sascha needs to worry about his own game instead of Andrey’s inadequacy.

In a fit of sudden rage, he kicks knocks his Nimbus against the bench. It slams loudly into the wood, making Sascha and Domi flinch.

“Yeah, that’s surely gonna help,” Sascha drawls, and Andrey looks at the new long scratch running along the broom shaft. He stares at it, dumbfounded and embarrassed and hates, hates, hates himself.

He’s in his final year in Hogwarts, NEWT exams are just around the corner, and Andrey has to decide. And if he’s not good enough to be a professional Quidditch player, what the fuck else is he good for?

“Practice is over!” He barks and storms away.

+++

Tsitsipas is already there in the empty Charms classroom when Dania strolls in trying for a look of casual disinterest. Tsitsipas beams when he sees him, and Dania can’t help feeling immediately under pressure to initiate some kind of a positive friendly interaction, and oh boy, is he not good at those.

“I brought a notebook,” he blurts out, showing it to Tsitsipas like he didn’t understand the notion of one. Though, judging by the way Tsitsipas stares at it, he might not do.

“Oooh,” he coos, shuffling closer, “is that a Muggle invention? Is this paper?”

Dania stares right back at him. “Are you telling me you’ve never seen a paper notebook before?”

“No!” Tsitsipas claims excitedly, as if Dania has presented him with a magical device straight out of the Department of Mysteries. “This is so brilliant! It’s like a Muggle book, but one that you can write in!”

“…Yes,” Dania chokes out. The way Tsitsipas is so bloody fascinated by the most basic of Muggle things is doing weird things to Dania’s stomach. There’s definitely a flutter there, god only knows why — must be because Tsitsipas is putting his filthy fingers all over the clean pages — and there’s also that same burning, red-hot rage, spreading through his insides like lava, melting his internal organs.

Of course Tsitsipas, who grew up in a fancy, rich Pureblood family, surrounded by quills and parchment and kiddie brooms and all kinds of ordinary magical things, wouldn’t know what a plain notebook looks like. Why would he?

Tsitsipas is considered a know-it-all even by the rigorous Ravenclaw standards: he knows everything about everything, has learned the most useless details about ancient magic nobody is ever going to use, and yet…

Apparently, acquiring the simplest Muggle knowledge is beneath him.

“Wait til you see a pen,” he says listlessly, as Tsitsipas perks up in excitement.

It’s not that Dania is some kind of a hardcore advocate for Muggle stuff and their integration in the magical community. But, for God’s sake — using a bloody quill? And parchment? At the precipice of the 21^st century?

He is a practical bloke, first and foremost. And even though he has to use those relics in his everyday life in Hogwarts, even though the rest of the Slytherins would lynch him if they ever caught him using the Muggle stuff, it doesn’t mean he can’t revert back to his comfort patterns when he is by himself. Or, in this case, with a harmless, clueless Tsitsipas.

“You don’t even have to dip it in ink?” Tsitsipas marvels at the ballpoint pen, about to expire from ecstasy. “How remarkable!”

“Not really,” Dania snaps, and Tsitsipas loses some of his excitement.

“Um, sorry,” he murmurs, looking down. “I reckon I just get a bit over-excited. This is the first time that anyone considered what I have to say important enough to write it down.”

Almost immediately, Dania’s rage deflates out of him, like air going out of a balloon. He sighs.

“Let’s get started, yeah?”

Tsitsipas fumbles and fidgets, before settling down on a chair and turning it to Dania like they were at some weirdly personal therapy session. This close, Tsitsipas’ eyes are particularly green, the tiny specks of gold around the irises catching Dania’s attention momentarily. He can see a splatter of faded freckles across his nose and cheeks, a couple of inflamed pimples on his chin. He forces himself to stop staring.

“So,” Tsitsipas starts. “Occlumency is a complicated subject, really. But for those who master it, it helps out a great amount in all other fields of magic.” He looks up to the window with a frown on his face, as if looking for the right words. “It’s mostly a science of controlling your own mind, being a master of your emotions and thoughts instead of letting yourself be mastered by them.”

“Sounds great,” Dania mutters, looking anywhere but at Tsitsipas’ golden-speckled eyes or his curly soft hair. “So how do I learn it?”

“That’s the tricky part.” Tsitsipas pushes something on the desk next to him, and for the first time, Dania notices that he’s been holding a huge ancient-looking tome, titled ‘Mind Magicks’. “I’ve found this one in the library — it can be a really hard read at times, but it certainly is helpful to explain some of the techniques, particularly the before-sleep exercises.”

“Fine,” Dania says, eyeing the heavy-looking book with apprehension. “I’ll check it out.”

“Yeah,” Tsitsipas mutters distractedly, staring at Dania like something fascinating was going on his face. Then he blinks and turns a shade of pink. “Yes. Well. So what I can do to help is probably describe to you how I achieve a state of a clear mind,” he eyeballs Dania carefully, apparently expecting him to interrupt, but Dania doesn’t. “So, the first thing I do, is I bring up my… um, my happy place.”

“Your happy place,” Dania repeats dubiously. At the back of his mind, there’s already a nagging regret at having come here at all, but he pushes it aside in order to at least give Tsitsipas the benefit of the doubt.

“Yes. Anything that makes you feel happy and safe and at peace. For me, it’s flying,” Tsitsipas explains in a rush, and Dania’s stomach does an unpleasant flip at the word. “So I calm myself down and I picture myself on a broom. Then I build up from there.”

“What do you mean, build up?”

“I add layers,” Tsitsipas says, “Smells, sounds, tactile sensations — like the wind in my hair, the distant croaking of the birds, the smell of the Hogwarts Lake, things like that. So I can fully and completely immerse myself in this vision. And I really concentrate on that.”

“Okay, so, again — like meditation.”

“I suppose,” Tsitsipas says uncertainly. “The key is to… lose yourself in this experience and completely disengage from the outside world. Immerse as deep within yourself as you possibly can.”

“So what… I just think about my… this “happy place”, what — really, really hard?” Dania says lamely, his blood starting to boil over. All of this sounds suspiciously like some self-help bollocks that shady Muggle entrepreneurs love so much.

“It’s not a matter of simply thinking about it,” Tsitsipas says calmly, oblivious to the ever-growing level of Dania’s irritation. “You’ve got to really get there. Like you don’t exist anywhere else.”

For a lack of an intelligible reply, Dania looks down at his useless wand clutched in his fingers. How is he supposed to really get there? Is that even going to be at all useful to him, or is Tsitsipas simply wasting Dania’s time for a lack of anything better to do? Why the fuck is Dania even here in the first place? What on earth has given him the impression that this would be a good idea?

“Whoa!” Tsitsipas yelps, clutching the suddenly vibrating desk. The glass in the window is rattling, as if shaken by the strongest of winds.

Tsitsipas stares at him. “Did you do this?”

“Did I do what?” Dania denies feebly.

This is why he’s here. His magic is all over the bloody place.

“Accidental magic,” Tsitsipas pushes on, looking Dania over as if checking him for hidden wounds. “Does this happen to you often?”

“Sometimes,” Dania admits. His heart is racing in his chest, and he feels bone-tired. “Not often,” he adds hastily.

Tsitsipas hums thoughtfully. “Well, in that case, I reckon you should really try and learn Occlumency.”

“That’s why I’m here, aren’t I?” Dania snaps again, and Tsitsipas raises his eyebrows at him like Dania was some silly kid unable to control his temper.

“Listen,” Tsitsipas sighs, standing up. “Let’s try this: I’m gonna let you in and show you what it looks like — to have a clear mind.”

“Let me in? Let me in where?”

“Into my mind,” Tsitsipas says like it was obvious. “There’s a spell for it, and I don’t want to use Legilimens on you yet.”

Seeing as how Dania has no idea what Tsitsipas is even talking about, he settles for making a vague noise of agreement, then eyes Tsitsipas suspiciously when he points his wand at Dania.

“Don’t worry,” he says in a tone that doesn’t really sound patronising, but Dania still can’t help bristling like it did. “It’s a mind spell that’ll let you feel and see what I’m experiencing.” He seems amused at Dania’s defensiveness. “If anything, I’m the one who should be worried — after all, I’m letting you into my mind here.”

Why? Dania wants to demand, but something stops him. What does it matter to you anyway?

Forcing himself to relax, Dania stands straight, looking Tsitsipas right in the eye. The last thing he hears is a quiet murmur of Intusus, sees Tsitsipas making a complicated wand motion, and then—

Dania is boneless, bodiless. He is a spirit, a bare soul, an idea floating in vacuum along with atoms and electrons, having lived for eternity and knowing he’ll be there for ages more.

Look, he hears from everywhere at once. He smells grass and salty water and warm air, so he must have a nose. He opens the eyes he didn’t have a moment ago and sees the eternal blue sky.

Wind is ruffling his hair in waves of hot and freezing-cold, and his eyes are tearing up from it. He’s flying fast, way too fast to be safe, but it’s alright because he’s good at it. This is the best that he’s ever been at in all of his life: clutching the broom, manoeuvring the shaft, using the subtle change of wind to his advantage. He pushes a stray curl out of his eyes, tucks it behind his ear.

This is it, him in his element. The rest of the world seems so tiny and insignificant, it might as well not exist. Just this, here: the sky, the wind and the broom between his thighs, carrying him far, far away, away from his worries, away from the loneliness, the despair, the constant looming fear—

Enough, booms the voice again.

Just as suddenly, Dania is thrown back into his own body, the sensation so peculiar and unpleasant that he stumbles and has to grasp the edge of the desk to keep upright, panting. His vision is blurry.

He blinks through the haziness to glance at Tsitsipas, but he is looking past Dania, eyes white-edged and… scared.

“What— what was that?” Dania chokes out.

He is heaving, something large and sharp and wrong stuck in his throat. His eyes are burning, and his fingers are twitching where they are — grasping at his chest like he’s in the midst of a heart attack. The panicky dread swells in his chest, as though he’s just lost something wonderful and brilliant, the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and yet he can’t even grasp at what it is that he’s lost. The sense of grief and unbearable loss strikes him like a sledgehammer, and, more than anything, he wants to collapse right there on the floor and cry and cry and cry.

“Are you— are you alright?” Tsitsipas’ voice carries over to him, as if through the wall, while Tsitsipas’ magic — warm and kind of shy, but soft like a feather — lingers in his bones and under his skin. It’s like a wonder drug spreading though his system, and Dania wants it gone and he wants it there forever, all at once.

It’s intense, much, much too intense, and he’s never felt anything like that before. Tsitsipas’ magic pulls him, beckons him, as though there was a powerful magnet attached to Tsitsipas and Dania was made entirely of iron.

“I’m fine,” he chokes out, though he feels anything but. He feels wrong in his own body, in his own head, like an intruder wearing someone else’s skin. Being thrown back into his own bitter, volatile consciousness is akin to coming down from a high, and it only emphasises the night-and-day difference between his own mind and Tsitsipas’. The only thing worse than this insufferable, vulnerable feeling inside of him is that the only thought in his head right now is of going straight back into Tsitsipas’ mind and staying there, warm and cuddled and safe.

“I gotta go,” he says hastily, straightening out and looking anywhere but at Tsitsipas. “It’s— it’s already nine, I gotta be back in the Common Room.”

“But—” Tsitsipas says and bites his tongue, painfully uncertain. He is blinking at Dania very fast, his incredibly long lashes—

No, stop it.

“Thanks,” he throws over his shoulder, making a beeline to the door. “For the help.”

“You are welcome,” he hears when he’s already out in the corridor.

It mortifies him that the bitter disappointment in Tsitsipas’ voice feels worse than anything this evening has by far.

+++