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One of these days, Ron Weasley will be the death of him.

He’s a great guy, don’t get him wrong. Fierce, loyal, an all-around good friend…

It’s just that… Well… Ron Weasley isn’t exactly the nicest to his non-friends. He’s insensitive and has a habit of running his mouth, and that makes him really annoying. Really, really annoying. 

Sure, Lucas has stared down monsters more terrifying than a grumpy preteen wizard, but that’s not the point. The point is that Ron Weasley is seemingly doing his best to antagonize Lucas, and really, it’s just getting sad now. That’s not to say that it doesn’t aggravate Lucas, being surrounded by people who hate others whose only crime was being born, because it does , but he would like it on record that he hasn’t started a fight. Yet.

Okay, maybe his whole antagonistic relationship with Ron Weasley is partially his own fault. Look, Lucas can’t help it! The guy just makes it so easy . What, is he supposed to pass up the chance to snap a retort? Please.

Demigods: snarking since 3000 BCE.

“Ready to beat those Gryffindors in flying class?” Nott asks him over breakfast one day. Sure enough, their first flying lesson would happen during the afternoon.

Lucas snorts. “I doubt we’re jumping straight to flying,” he refutes. “What would happen to those who have never flown before? Not every family is as wealthy as you and I.”

“I suppose,” Nott says, heaving a dramatic sigh. “Yeah, you’re right. We’ll probably be summoning brooms all day.”

“Just have patience.” Lucas frowns, stabbing at his eggs, glancing to the side once he’s realized that no one is jumping in on their conversation. The others all seem pretty occupied, and Crabbe and Goyle never talk much, anyway. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Nott rolls his eyes. “What’ve we got first, Charms?”

“History of Magic,” Lucas corrects him. “Charms was yesterday.”

“Oh, just what I wanted, having to listen to Binns first thing in the morning.” Nott huffs, spearing a sausage and biting a large chunk off. “Hey, can I borrow your notes again? I think you’re the only one who actually listens to Binns, anyway.”

How irritating. “I am going to make a History of Magic study group,” he threatens, straightening his back as he sits up, “and you are going to come to every single meeting and you can make your own damn notes while I explain Binns’ lessons so you actually understand the notes.”

Most of the first year Slytherins are staring at him with varying degrees of wide eyes and slack jaws. For a moment, no one speaks. Then, Nott breaks the silence.

“ Dude. ”

Lucas almost laughs at the lack of grace Nott is displaying. Instead, he plays into his supposed snobbish background, and sniffs haughtily. “We are Slytherins. If we slack, we slack effectively. ”

Pansy frowns. “You’ve got a point,” she decides. “We ought to strive for good grades in all of our classes, after all. Besides—” she gives Lucas a sickeningly sweet smile, “I’m sure you’ll prove to be a much better teacher than Binns.”

Alright, that’s it, he’s out. He cannot deal with this. Nope. No. He refuses to. Pansy already spends most of her time flattering him, he does not want to be around long enough for it to develop even further. He’s out of here. No, this is not fleeing. This is a very tactical retreat, made for the safety of his sanity.

“I am going to go on a walk,” Lucas decides, sliding to his feet and smoothing out his robes. “I will see the rest of you in class.” Crabbe and Goyle begin to stand as well, and hastily, he adds, “You two can stay and continue eating, if you want, maybe finish up your five dozen eggs.”

It works. They stay seated, and Lucas strides away to the sound of Daphne Greengrass cackling loudly.

As he passes the tables, he glances at the Gryffindor table for a brief moment, watching as Neville holds up a Remembrall, shining a bright red. Lucas’s eyes flicker to Neville’s collar, looking painfully bare. Then, the Remembrall slips from his hand, and tumbles off the end of the table.

It happens all too fast. The glass sphere tumbles towards him, and on reflex, Lucas’s hand reaches out to snatch the Remembrall from the air. The red mist encased by the glass ball slowly turns white in his hand, and Lucas spies Weasley’s outraged face from the corner of his eye, though he pays no attention to this. He plops the Remembrall back into Neville’s hands.

“You forgot your tie,” Lucas informs him with a grin. “And try not to drop this again, yeah? Wouldn’t want something as useful as this to break, do we?”

He smiles sharply at Neville, and walks away before he gets caught up in another argument with Weasley.

^^^

The first two classes come and go, and not long after lunch, it’s time for the flying lesson. It’s a nice cool day, with not too much wind, and Lucas arrives to a crisply cut lawn, not unlike a golf course. In the distance, the dark silhouette of the Forbidden Forest sways in the gentle breeze, and a row of broomsticks lay before him and the others.

“Ready for our intro into flying?” Lucas asks Nott.

He groans. “I’m going to die of boredom,” he complains. “Can I skip?”

“I’ll drag you back.”

Nott huffs. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Nott’s head swivels around, eyeing the arriving Gryffindors and opens his mouth to speak, but before he can get a single word out, Madam Hooch arrives.

Lucas straightens his back ever so slightly as Madam Hooch begins to speak, eyeing each student piercingly with her hawk-like eyes.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?” she snaps at them. “Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up, we haven’t got all day.”

With a scowl, Lucas picks a broomstick and stands next to it. Beside him stands Crabbe and Goyle. Wonderful. He really doesn’t need to be smelling their bad breath for the next hour or so.

“Stick out your right hand over your broom, “ Madam Hooch instructs, “and say ‘Up!’”

A chorus of “Up!” rings out across the field. Lucas is fortunate enough for the broomstick to immediately jump into his hand, but others aren’t so lucky. Some of the brooms merely roll over, or simply refuse to move at all. Lucas quietly snickers at some of the attempts. 

Then they move onto learning to mount the brooms. After a brief explanation by Madam Hooch, they move onto demonstrations, and Madam Hooch walks around, inspecting their grips and correcting them with a healthy lecture. Much to his chagrin, Madam Hooch happens to find fault with Lucas’s grip, lecturing him and telling him that she expected better. The hell?

“How does it feel to be told that you’ve been doing it wrong for years?” Zabini teases.

Lucas stares pointedly at him and most definitely does not laugh when he’s the next to get lectured by Madam Hooch.

“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” Madam Hooch instructs. “Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet and then come straight back down by leaning forwards slightly. On my whistle — three — two —”

She’s cut off by Neville, who pushes forward prematurely, presumably from nerves. All throughout the lesson, Lucas has got the feeling from him that he’d really much rather stay on the ground. Not that Lucas can blame him — he trusts pegasi more than he trusts these crooked-looking broomsticks. Still, nerves don’t always work in your favour, and Neville is a good example of this.

“Come back, boy!” Madam Hooch shouts after Neville, but he’s clearly too nervous — instead, the broomstick merely shoots higher and higher into the sky. As his pale face looks down at the ground, realizing that he's much too high, his grip on the broomstick slackens and he falls, crumpling to a heap on the ground as his broomstick drifts higher and higher.

Ouch. Lucas winces at the loud crack that follows, remembering the first time he had ridden a pegasus. The pain that had followed had almost made it the last time he ever rode one.

Madam Hooch hunches over Neville, her face a horrible chalky white.

“Broken wrist,” she mutters. "Come on, boy — it's alright, up you get."

She turns to level the rest of them with a fierce glare. “None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing!” she orders. “You leave those brooms where they are or you’ll be out of Hogwarts before you can say ‘Quidditch’. Come on, dear.”

As the two depart, with Madam Hooch helping Neville walk with an arm around his shoulder, Zabini bursts into laughter.

“Did you see his face, the great lump?” Zabini cackles.

Lucas frowns as the other Slytherins laugh. The fall wasn’t that funny. 

“Shut up, Zabini,” Parvati Patil snaps. 

“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” Pansy sneers with a snide grin. “Never thought you’d like fat little cry babies, Parvati.”

Lucas’s mouth twitches, and he bites down on his lip to stop himself from smiling.

Okay. Maybe it is a little funny.

"Look!" Zabini exclaims, running forward and picking up something off the ground. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's been carrying around all day.” He held it up, and the Remembrall gleamed a burning white in the sunlight.

Great. Awesome. Yeah, this is going to end up turning out great .

“Give that here, Zabini,” Harry says quietly. The silence that ensues is almost deafening, like the moment just before a storm arrives to bury the land in a watery grave.

Zabini smiles. 

“Why should I?” he says. “I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to collect.” His eyes flick up to a lone, tall tree. His smile widens. “How about a tree, hmm?”

“Give it here!” Harry yells, but Zabini is already pretty high up. He hovers in the sky gracefully, though that’s hardly a surprise — most Pure-Bloods spent their entire childhood on a broomstick.

“Come and get it, Potter!”

Lucas watches as Harry grabs his broom, but Hermione Granger holds a hand out.

" No !" she scolds him. "Madam Hooch told us not to move — you'll get us all into trouble."

Is it too late to leave? Lucas watches as Harry ignores her warnings and kicks off into the air, flying skillfully for someone who’s never been on a broom before, spurred on by shouts and whoops as he turns sharply to face Zabini. It’s a funny sight, but Lucas can’t help the twitch in his fingers as his mind jumps to worst-case scenarios.

"Give it here," Harry tells Zabini, "or I'll knock you off your broom!"

"Oh yeah?" Zabini puffs up, trying to look confident, but to Lucas, it looks simply like false bravado — an attempt to not look as shaken as he feels.

Lucas snorts as Harry rushes forward, shooting forward sharply at Zabini, who barely swings out of the way. He pivots back swiftly, and just like that, the two of them are face to face again. Despite Lucas’s distance from them, he can tell the air is charged, not unlike when Thalia and Luke would get into their little spats. But Thalia and Luke usually make up afterwards, in rather gross ways. He’s pretty sure this isn’t what’s going on with Zabini and Harry.

“Nobody to save your neck up here, Zabini,” Harry taunts.

Zabini scowls. “Catch it if you can, then!” he shouts, and hurls the Remembrall to the ground as he flies back down to the ground. Lucas’s head snaps up, watching as Harry flies down at a sharp angle, slicing through the air at a speed that would surely kill him if he collided with the ground, and—

Harry catches the Remembrall a foot off the ground, and as he pulls his broom straight and topples down onto the clean-cut lawn, Lucas lets out a relieved sigh. Thank the gods. Harry hasn’t killed himself, and Lucas isn’t going to be murdered by Hecate. That would really put a damper on things.

“HARRY POTTER!”

Lucas flinches, his hand reaching for a weapon that isn’t there as McGonagall storms towards them. Aw, shit. Shit shit shit. Forget Harry’s flying, McGonagall is going to expel him and then how will Lucas be able to keep him alive?

"Never — in all my time at Hogwarts—"

Professor McGonagall sounds almost voiceless with shock, her glasses glinting furiously. "— how dare you — might have broken your neck —"

"It wasn't his fault Professor —"

"Be quiet Miss Patil —"

"But Zabini-"

"That's enough, Mr Weasley. Potter, follow me, now."

Lucas stares at their retreating backs as his mind blanks, Zabini’s snickering a dull buzz in the back of his mind.

He is so dead.

^^^

The next few days pass by, and Harry is still going to class as usual, so Lucas begins to relax. Then Zabini drags him into a Wizarding Duel and tells him that it’s all a ploy to get Harry in trouble, and just like that, Lucas’s stress levels spike again. He’s going to have gray hairs by the end of this, he just knows it.

Whatever. It’s probably fine. One detention won’t kill him, and Harry could use the reminder that he can’t just run around the school whenever he wants. It’ll probably be better for him in the long run, once Harry has learned to stop snooping about at night so Lucas won’t have to worry about him getting killed while he’s sleeping.

Yeah. He’ll do that. 

It’ll be fine!

Bonus: