A Meeting
Hans opened his eyes, blearily taking in the bright light shining through the window above his bed. He rubbed his eyes, sitting up and looking down at himself. The boy was so tired last night, mixed with a distracted mind from last night’s events, that he didn’t even bother to undress before sinking into bed.
The boy stood up, taking himself toward his wardrobe. He opened the doors to the wardrobe, turning his gaze to the mirror hung up on its interior. He looked at his face, staring deep into his own eyes.
His hair was long, wavy, and black. The color of his hair matched that of deep midnight, but light browns streaked through his waves when the light hit it just right. The iris of his eyes was a glinting silver, sometimes shining with a bright intelligence, and other moments gleaming with compassion.
His skin was just a few shades lighter than olive, a tan that Hans earned even in the dead of winter, with the sun shining on his back through his many adventures. His teeth were straight and dazzling, though he would not lie that a few times he had to fix them due to certain “accidents” adventuring near Hogwarts. His chin was rounded, extending to a well defined jaw-line.
Hans could not but help himself be confident in the fact that he was at least somewhat attractive. In the end it didn’t matter to him, he didn’t want all the girls swooning over him. He tried not to pay attention to things like that, maybe that’s why it took him so long to realize Poppy’s interest in him. Hans didn’t want to be liked for his looks, instead what was on the inside. That Hans was not so confident in.
Hans selected another outfit from his wardrobe. This time he chose his Crossed Wands champion garb, gathering up the many accessories that go with it. After buttoning up his shirt, Hans pulled on his tunic and straightened it, straightening the outfit. For a moment his hand hovered over a traditional black robe, before moving over along the rod that hung all of his many robes.
He grasped his House Fanatic Cloak, pulling it over his arms and throwing it on his back. After fixing his cloak and straightening his belt, his eyes raised to meet his own once more in the mirror. He smiled at himself, ruffling his fingers through his hair before turning to leave the room.
———
Early in the morning, far earlier than they usually would, Poppy’s eyes sprung open. Her sleep was filled with a restless excitement, like that of a child anticipating Christmas the coming day.
The moment seven in the morning rolled around, Poppy was up and getting dressed. It was a Saturday morning, and usually on days like this Poppy slept for many hours into the day, sometimes close to noon.
Poppy sprung her trunk open, throwing out haphazardly placed items inside of the trunk until she found a clean set of clothes. This time it wasn’t her usual gray long skirt, but instead she wore a pair of black dress pants and a white button-up shirt beneath her typical Hufflepuff robe.
Poppy took a bit longer messing with her hair, trying to figure out what to do with it. She always kept it short, so there wasn’t much she could do with it. Eventually, she just settled it how she usually did, though she tried to poof it a little with a few taps of her wand.
With that, Poppy gave herself a nervous smile in the mirror she was using, excited, for once, to go to the Great Hall, and not the beasts she would pursue on a day like this after breakfast. She turned away from the mirror and bounded out of the common room, practically running up the stairs toward the entrance hall.
Several of her classmates gave Poppy strange looks as she, beaming like the sun on a cloudless day, bounced into the Great Hall. She made her way over to Hufflepuff table, noticing at how empty it was this time of day.
Poppy instantly noticed that Hans was no where visible at the Ravenclaw table, and anywhere else in the Great Hall. Poppy plopped herself down at the Hufflepuff table, reaching for some toasted bread to spread some butter over. As she began to knife jam over her bread, somebody sat next to her.
Poppy looked up in surprise from her toast, seeing Natsai smiling at her, “Hello, my friend.”
“Morning!” Poppy said brightly, still beaming, before continuing with her toast.
“Sebastian was asking about you and Hans,” Natsai murmured quietly, the slightest of smirks across her face.
“O-Oh really?” Poppy squeaked, “what did you say?”
Natsai turned from where she was seated at the Hufflepuff table, waving at the Slytherin table, “I told him he should ask one of you.” Poppy looked too, seeing Sebastian and his blind friend, Ominis. She hadn’t noticed either of them. Sebastian stood up, with Ominis following behind as he moved across the Great Hall to sit with Natsai and Poppy.
The two plopped themselves on the other side of the long table, facing Poppy and Natsai. “Morning, girls,” Sebastian yawned.
Poppy only stared at Sebastian and Ominis, she wasn’t exactly friends with the two. Of course, they weren’t really enemies, but instead they were mostly neutral.
Natsai on the other hand seemed to have gotten to know the Slytherin’s far better than Poppy had, as she greeted them, “Good morning, boys.”
Poppy only faltered for a big moment, and said, “Morning!”
“Oh.” Ominis simply said, “Poppy Sweeting and Natsai Onai. Greetings.”
For a moment there was an awkward silence, and Poppy went back to her toast, setting it down on her plate as Natsai began to speak. “I was just telling Poppy here about your questions last night.”
“Oh, right,” Sebastian nodded, “what’s going on with Hans?”
Poppy blinked in surprise. She was expecting questions about her closeness to Hans, not his well-being. This was far easier to answer, “what do you mean?”
“On Thursday he looked like the saddest man in the school, but yesterday evening he looked like he had his soul given back,” Sebastian explained.
There it was. Now the question had a little bit of difficulty. Poppy had no idea if Hans wanted the knowledge of the previous night to be shared with anyone yet, so she began to stumble over her words, “I- well, I don’t know. It could have been anything, maybe he just got himself out of his head. I didn’t have anything to do with it,” she finished lamely.
Sebastian and Natsai exchanged grins, whilst Ominis stared in Poppy’s direction with a strange expression, as if she had suddenly been transfigured into a chicken.
“Are you sure, my friend?” Natsai interjected slyly.
Poppy blushed, her gaze falling to her toast as she stared at it with an intense fascination. Oh Merlin! She just blew everything.
Before Poppy had the chance to answer, she was saved, as a smooth and calming voice asked, “What’s going on?”
“Hans!” Breathed Poppy, relieved, spinning to look up at him. Hans smiled at down her, a smile that struck her soul with a warm fuzzy feeling.
“Good morning, Poppy,” his eyes twinkled as their eyes locked for a moment, before his gaze went to the others.
“Hello, my friend,” Natsai gave Hans a small wave, which he returned, saying hello before he turned his eyes to the two Slytherins on the other side of the table.
“Ominis, it’s good to see you,” Hans said warmly.
“Like wise.”
Hans locked eyes with Sebastian, their gaze saying many things, and Hans said, “Sebastian,” rather stiffly with a small nod.
Sebastian smiled, a bit nervously, as whilst he answered, “Hello, Hans.”
“Have you heard any news regarding..?” Hans began, before his voice trailed away while his gaze still did not leave Sebastian’s eyes.
Sebastian dropped his stare, looking into his lap and mumbling, “No.”
Ominis was the one who broke the following silence, “It’ll be okay, Sebastian. She said she just needed time.”
“Right,” Sebastian whispered softly.
Poppy and Natsai looked between the three boys, quite bewildered by the current exchange. Poppy noticed the soft stare that settled upon Sebastian from Hans, and how Hans’s eyes were all but angry. Hans felt bad for Sebastian, but why? What happened? Poppy wanted to know, but she didn’t want to push any boundaries.
Sebastian began to stand, but before he could finish his movement, Hans reached across the table and touched his friend’s arm just lightly. Sebastian hesitantly met Hans’s intense stare as his Ravenclaw friend whispered, “I’m sorry. Both for bringing it up and for what it is.”
Sebastian nodded, his bottom lip quivering just slightly as he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robe. The boy finished standing, turning away from them and murmuring something about going back to the common room.
What followed was an awkward silence, where Poppy and Natsai looked around confused, Hans stared sadly at the doors Sebastian just disappeared into, and Ominis stared blankly at the table.
Hans sighed and began to sit down next to Poppy, while Natsai began to ask, “What was all of that about?”
The Ravenclaw began to answer, but was quick to pause, “Sebastian is-“ Hans still had not looked at Poppy since the exchange, instead he was looking directly into Omisis’s blank eyes, “Sebastian is going through something hard.”
Ominis nodded, confirming this, before drawing his wand and passing it over the table with the same white light he used to navigate the castle. Poppy, Natsai, and Hans watched Ominis in silence, some intrigued, others with their minds on other things. After doing this, Ominis lowered his wand and grabbed at a piece of toast in the center of the table.
“How did you do that, Ominis?” Poppy asked, realizing that the strange stroke of his wand somehow navigated the Slytherin to the toast.
“I don’t know, I just always could,” he answered blandly, before taking a bite of his toast.
This reminded Poppy of her own abandoned toast, which was sitting on the table, looking a little less appetizing. After a few moments of her staring at her bread, she looked up at Hans watching her with the smallest of smiles. “What?” She exclaimed.
“Nothing, nothing-I was just, nothing,” The words tumbled haphazardly out of Hans’s mouth.
Hans looked up from Poppy, who was sitting between him and Natsai, to see the Gryffindor grinning from ear to ear. “Why are you giving me that look?”
“Because you see, my friend, I was right about you two,” Natsai answered in a sly voice.
“What does that mean?” Hans inquired, in a bit more of a demanding tone than his usual self.
It was Ominis who answered, not Natsai, “It means that the reason she invited me and Sebastian over was because she wanted to weasel out of Miss Sweeting if the reason you were acting so different from the rest of this week was because of anything that happened between you and Miss Sweeting last night. This also means that yesterday, Sebastian told me that Miss Onai told him that she had suspected that there was something more than just a friendship between you two for months now, and you have been too blind to see it.”
Hans was rather appalled by all of this, but he was quick to devise a comeback, “Sebastian and I,” he corrected sharply.
“I’m sorry?” the blind Slytherin tilted his head.
“You said ‘Sebastian and me,’” the Ravenclaw answered.
Realization dawned on Ominis, “Oh. Shut up, bookworm,” the Slytherin laughed, in quite a tempered and composed manner, making a jest at Hans’s home house.
Hans grinned, looking down at Poppy and putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer to him, whilst she and Natsai giggled at the banter between the two boys. “For your information,” Hans said coldly, looking between Natsai and Ominis, “nothing happened between me and Poppy last night.”
Natsai looked from Hans arm, which was still around Poppy, to his face, then back again. The Gryffindor rolled her eyes and stood up, “I have to go return a book to the library. I will see you all later.”
Ominis finished his piece of toast just as Poppy began eating hers. “I must go find Sebastian.”
“Good luck. I’ll see you later, Ominis,” Hans called to Ominis as the boy strode away from the Hufflepuff table.
Now it was just Hans and Poppy sitting together at the long table. Hans watched contentedly as Poppy bit into her toast, grinning sheepishly as she looked up at him with wide eyes, stuck in mid bite.
Poppy swallowed her bit of toast, looking at him with flushed cheeks, “What?”
“Nothing,” he shook his head, “you’re just… adorable.”
Poppy giggled, blushing even more and slumping to her side, leaning into the side of his chest. From here, beneath his arm, that still was around her shoulders, she could once more hear his beating heart. For some odd reason, it was some kind of comfort to her.
Hans realized he still had his arm around her, and with a slight shake of his head, cursing himself for pushing possible boundaries, he dropped his arm to his side. Poppy straightened herself, looking up at Hans with a confused and disappointed look.
Hans looked her in the eye, realizing that her expression was because of the sudden loss of contact, and so he laughed, a little embarrassed at his hesitant actions, before putting his arm back around her shoulder. Poppy smiled contender, leaning into him and finishing her toast in peace.
Once she was done, Poppy looked back at her love and found that he was once again just watching her with his peaceful and happy smile. “What?” She demanded, feigning indignation.
“I’m just… marveling at all of your amazingness,” Hans said quietly, leaning into her and pressing his lips against her forehead, giving her just the softest of kisses. Poppy could feel her skin in that spot tingle.
He pulled back, “What are your plans today?”
Poppy blinked at him in surprise, “Oh. Uh-I don’t know. Maybe go see the animals? Maybe I’ll go to the library and find another book on dragons, or, or-“ she trailed off realizing that Hans was watching her with a most amused expression.
“What?” She remarked for the third time, a bit demanding at the sight of his persistent and precious smile.
“Nothing. Do you want to come to the Three Broomsticks with me and get a butter beer?”
Poppy’s face lit up with excitement, “oh! Yes!”
“Cool,” Hans smiled, “then it’s a plan.”
“Awesome!“
Hans’s grin widened, and Poppy felt the bubble of happiness inside of her grow just a little bit more, “Great. When?”
“How about right now?” Poppy asked, her smile small, but the eyes she gave him reminded him of that of a puppy.
“I- sure,” Hans breathed out, smiling and beginning to stand up, taking her hand with him.
The couple made their way out of the Great Hall, still amidst many stares and many whispering, but this time Poppy was just a bit more confident in herself. This time she had her love with her, his hand intwined with hers as they departed the Great Hall, laughing and talking all the way to Hogsmeade.