Janurary
Jay snuck into his first classroom, hiding behind his friends and then his neighbor the entire way here. Jay quietly and slowly made his way to his desk, putting a lot of effort into keeping out of sight of any and all Pomefiore students. His neighbor snickered at him under his breath.
“Don’t laugh.” Jay muttered, “Be nice and don’t laugh.”
“Pft!” His neighbor did laugh, “I-I’m sorry it’s just that I have never seen you so out of your dept before! And for something like this…!”
“I wouldn’t be like this if it wasn’t for that bloody competition.” Jay muttered darkly.
“Aww, don’t be so bitter.” His neighbor said, sounding too amused for Jay.
“If you like this so much, you can join.”
“No, thank you! As an introvert who is allergic to stage and people, I refused.” His neighbor refuted joyfully.
“If you’re so introverted, why are you talking to me?”
“Because you’re my dorm neighbor.” His neighbor lied before telling the truth when Jay stared at him for a while longer and his neighbor begrudgingly told him the truth, “... The dorm head didn’t want to deal with the paperwork if you decide to follow the trend your… friends… set.”
“Leaving the dorm to sleep elsewhere?”
“You need to do a lot of paperwork for that.”
The conversation died down as Jay ducked under his neighbor’s table when a Pomefiore student rushed into class. The student looked around, eyeing Jay’s table for a moment before sighing and walking to his desk.
“Why are they after me?” Jay bemoaned after a second, sitting back at his desk.
His neighbor, who Jay has long since learned did not understand what rhetorical questions were, listed out his answer, “Your balance is unreal which translate to being a good dancer, your voice has a memorable tone to it that means your singing voice will be too, and your face is symmetrical, which means you are objectively pretty. Also, your hair is long enough for them to style however they want.”
“Drop it.” Jay ordered.
“Okay, but why won’t you try?”
Jay just sighed, which was enough for his neighbor to stop.
As confident as he was in his looks, he still didn’t like it when people stared at him. He didn’t even have Lyssie to silently encourage him and give him the confidence he lacked and sorely needed.
It was Lys who helped him embrace his girly looks. It was Lys who gave him a safe place to be himself and just draw without scrutiny. It was Lys who he confided in about not liking girls (or guys, or anyone really. Lys explained it all to him about the LGBTQ+ community and made him a small AroAce pin that he took everywhere and was never without) and accepted him wholeheartedly without any questions. It was also Lys who gave him the confidence to chose to fight in the war.
Without Lys around him, it was like more than half of his confidence and self-worth disappeared.
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Dietrich Occlude hard when Professor Crewel partnered him up with Sebek Zigvolt. Dietrich wonders if Professor Crewel was punishing him for something Ten and Lu did during their last-period class. Why do the professors always decide to punish him for things the others did? Pour l’amour de dieu, what has he ever done to deserve this?
Zigvolt was extremely loud, hot-blooded, and prideful. He was louder than Lu and Ten combined, more hot-blooded than him (Dietrich knew his own personality, it comes with the territory of Occlumency), and he had more pride than Nate. Zigvolt also had the habit of looking down on humans and made this very clear through frequent patronizing comments throughout the class.
It was like the usual Pureblood Bullshit, as Lys had put it back in his First Year, so it was easy to ignore.
Nevertheless, Zigvolt wasn’t that bad. He is a bluntly honest person who is not afraid to express his thoughts, and will openly acknowledge others for their talents or other impressive skills. However, his delivery of those compliments tended to come off as rude, which causes misunderstandings.
He is also very loyal and has a lot of respect for Malleus Draconia and Lilia Vanrouge and he becomes surprisingly much more polite and meek when addressing them. His ultimate goal is to someday be a suitable knight for Malleus, and he trains hard every day for this sole purpose, which is something Dietrich could respect.
He did - and is still doing - the same for Lys.
“You! Human! We are paired up for this assignment! Do not mess up, Sir Lilia has said he will reward me if I am able to successfully complete this task!” Zigvolt yelled, appearing beside him.
“I will not mess up. Rest assured, Zigvolt, Alchemy is my best subject.” Dietrich said as he went to gather the ingredients.
Zigvolt nodded, “I know that! However, one can never be too careful!”
Dietrich ignored Zigvolt, who kept talking about Draconis and Vanrouge, and worked on the potion.
“Human! I have to ask, why have you and your friends decided to sleep outside of your dorms?! Do you not understand how much work you are causing your Dorm Head?!” Zigvolt asked with a glare, which was most likely his usual expression but there was a bit of fire in his eyes.
“Your Dorm Head, Draconia, is also your Master, am I correct?” Dietrich asked instead of answering.
If he formulates this right (and he would, he was a Slytherin after all), he could get Zigvolt to see things his way and save himself a large headache that would last all period and possibly the rest of the class.
“Of course! Master Malleus is…” Zigvolt went on a tangent about how wonderful and amazing his Master was.
Dietrich just kept nodding as he carefully added the ingredients into the cauldron and put the stirring stick into Zigvolt’s hand to let him do the tedious work as he started to measure the next round of ingredients.
“Enough, puppy. Focus on your work.” Professor Crewel said, stopping Zigvolt’s tangent as he passed.
“Apologies, Professor!” Zigvolt said.
Professor Crewel nodded.
After Professor Crewel left, Zigvolt spoke up again, “So, your answer, Human?!”
“If your Dorm Head wasn’t Draconia-”
“Impossible! The only one worthy of-”
“ Mon Dieu , I am simply using it as an example. If you wish for the answer, do not interrupt.” Dietrich stopped him.
“Hmph.” Zigvolt huffed, “It is rather rude of you to interrupt me as I regal you with Master Malleus’ greatness, Human! However, I will do my best to listen!”
Le diable me met à l’épreuve, Dieu rit.
Dietrich Occlude hard.
“If your Dorm Head wasn’t Draconia, would you listen to them if it goes against what Draconia tells you to do?” Dietrich asked.
“Of course not! I will not listen to anyone who is not Master Malleus unless he tells me to do so himself!” Zigvolt huffed.
“Then you should understand. My liege lord is who I follow, the Dorm Heads are not. My fellow dormmates are imbéciles who try to tell me not to interact with my friends, the people who have also pledged their loyalty to my liege lord. My liege lord wants us to get along, and my dormmates are trying to tear us apart.”
“Ah! I see!” Zigvolt exclaimed as he smiled brightly, “I have misjudged you, Human! You are in the same position as I. Pledged to a Master worthy of you! I now understand why you have caused trouble for your Dorm Head, you have chosen your loyalty instead of the rules, truly a commendable choice!”
Dietrich just nodded and handed in the potion. That headache was done.
He looked at the clock.
Ten more minutes.
Merde.
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Lu flew around the sky. He was alone for once, everyone else was busy. Ten was napping off spilling a Drowsyness Potion he accidentally made during their last class. While Dietrich, Nate, and Jay were arguing in their classroom about the best way to do a thing that might take them back home.
Lu wasn’t really listening. All the bloody technical terms were too much, Lys didn’t teach him that much about Runes and Rituals and stuff yet. When they get home, Lu was going to ask Lys for more tutoring sessions. It might melt his brain into pumpkin juice but he didn’t want to be useless like this again.
After flying aimlessly for a while, Lu did a loop de loop in the air before landing down by the tree where he left his water bottle and a small snack. Briefly, he thought back to the times he snuck out into the Quidditch Field at night. He would fly around alone for hours until he wasn’t. Lys and Dietrich followed him and soon, everyone followed him. Harper would join him in the sky while everyone else waited on the ground. Lys would be reading, Jay would be drawing, and Dietrich would be arguing with Nate.
Lys would then stop reading to fling wandless Stinging Hexes at them to make them stop. They will stop for a while before arguing again, which makes the cycle repeat. Sometimes he, Jay, and Ten would bet how many times the cycle would repeat. The lowest repetitions were five times while the most were ten.
“You.” A voice said from behind him.
Lu turned his head, It was a fellow Savanaclaw student. He had wolf ears and a big bussy wolf tail.
“Yes. Me, and you are?”
“Jack Howl” The Savanaclaw with a glare in his eyes, “Why won’t you and Harper come back to the dorm? You are abandoning the pack.”
Lu recognized this student now. Nate said something about a First-Year Savanaclaw student called Jack Howl who worked with the Heartslabyul students, flaming cat, and Muggle student to stop Kingscholar’s plot.
“Kind of ironic, since you're calling us out on abandoning the ‘pack,’ as you called it, since you also did the same back in October.” Lu snarked. Hey, he did learn things when Nate and Dietrich argue with each other.
Howl’s glare deepened, “I did that to stop the pack from doing something they would regret later. You have abandoned it and never returned. You got yourselves banned, but the ban has long been lifted and you should have gone back by now.”
Lu didn’t want to hear it. Lu knows that these Animal people (Therianthropes, Nate explained) were animal-like but he didn’t want to live like that.
Lu snarled, “I do not listen to anyone. No one here can order me around. Especially not someone who just sits around doing nothing and doesn’t care about anything.”
Lys let him be himself without needing to change to get attention. He didn’t want to go back to somewhere that wouldn’t even take his opinion into account. Maybe Lys spoiled him too much but it didn’t matter.
He didn’t need someone else’s validations or orders to feel needed. Least of all a Dorm Head who should have thought about the students under his rule. Lys would have never made a mistake like that.
Even when the ‘Claws were really annoying, she didn’t hit any of the ‘Claws that had good connections to those under her command unless they did something to Luna. Kingscholar attacked Jay even though he was friends with him and Ten, which wasn’t a leader Lu would ever follow.
Lu glared at Howl until he left. Once he did, Lu shot into the sky again. He needed to blow off his anger.
Flying always made him feel better.
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Nate looked up from his book and up at the Heartslabyul student who sat down in front of him. He was sitting at a table in the library, researching about the world some more, just to spice things about in his search back home. Jay had come with him but left a few moments ago to do some drawing outside.
Nate eyed the person in front of him. Cater Diamond, Third Year Heartslabyul student, previous Dorm Head before Riddle Rosehearts took over, and is currently acting as Rosehearts’ Left Hand. Also, Nate smirked inwardly, Diamond is the informant of Heartslabyul. This might be fun.
Nate closed the book and leaned back in his chair, keeping a polite, closed-eye smile on his face.
“Cater Diamond. It’s not often that an older student would want to drop in on a younger student while they study, one from a different dorm at that. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Nate asked, taking initiative in the conversation once it became clear that Diamond wasn’t going to start talking.
Diamond smiled, “Ah! Did I interrupt your studying? Sorry, sorry! Cray just wanted to talk to his cute, little underclassmen!”
“And what do you want to talk about?” Nate asked.
“You see, Nathaniel Wilkes, your friend group is rather tight, you know? You, Dietrich Bastion, Tristan Harper, Julius Rookwood, and Lucas Vaisey have such a close friend group that there’s never a way to get close to any of you.” Diamond said offhandedly.
Nate sighed, “Yes, I know we are nauseatingly close. However, that’s just how we are.”
“You were together since you were young.” Diamond said, showing Nate that he had already done some research before confronting him, “It’s so sad, no space for Cray to come in to make new friends!”
Nate watched apathetically as Diamond whined dramatically. So this was his aim, to insert himself and gather more contacts.
“Bastion, Harper, and Vaisey don’t have any other friends outside of your little friend group, Rookwood sort of has his neighbor but it’s more like a passing acquaintance. You, however, have many friends. Roselia said hi, by the way.” Diamond said with a smile as if he hadn’t revealed that he knew of his information network.
“Mmm. Roselia is a nice girl.” Nate nodded, not revealing anything, “A little lonely but a rather good conversationist.”
“That she is.” Diamond nodded before smiling, “So, I was wondering if you would like to be friends with Cray too!”
Nate looked at Diamond who was beaming up at him. From what Nate could gather, Diamond just wanted to expand his own information network. If Nate could get someone like Diamond under his control, he would have agreed to be friends. However, it was clear that, if he agreed now, he would be the one at a disadvantage.
Nate wouldn’t be a good Slytherin if he agreed to an agreement that wasn’t skewed in his favor.
Nate smiled, “I’m sorry, Diamond. I do not know you well enough to agree to any sort of friendship with you.
Diamond smiled, “Aww, don’t be so mean! You’ll make Cray cry.”
Before Diamond could continue talking, Jay rushed into the library and barreled towards them.
“Nate! Hurry! Ten and Lu are in Dietrich’s space and are trying to recreate an accidental potion they made in Alchemy in the last class! Dietrich is trying but he needs help!” Jay exclaimed in a panic.
Faux-panic. Nate could tell. Jay was trying to run interference. Tsk. Dietrich and his insistence on keeping him on a tight leash. Lys always lets him have his fun, within reason but he had fun.
“Ah, sorry, Diamond, but duty calls.” Nate said.
They left Diamond sitting in the library. Nate doubts that this would be the last time he’d be talking to Diamond but he didn’t mind.
Cater Diamond, Ruggie Bucchi, Jade Leech, Jamil Viper, Rook Hunt, Idia Shroud, and Lilia Vanrouge. Those seven people are the informants of their dorms and talking to them would be fun. Between handling his new information network, school work, his friends’ antics, and researching home, Nate thinks he could find some time to play with those people. It would be fun and a good destresser.
Nate smirked.
“Play nice.” Jay muttered, “Lys always said to play nice.”
“She said to play nice with you four and those under her control, no one else.” Nate said flippantly.
“I don’t know anything.” Jay muttered, “I don’t know anything. I am not involved.”
Nate’s smirk widened.
Yes. It will be fun.
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Ten bounced to the cafeteria with Lu by his side. They were talking about the explosions and potions he made during Alchemy Class. The potions were technically new in this world but they existed in their world.
“Professor Crewel is bloody mental!” Lu exclaimed as he laughed, “The madman kept encouraging you and writing down what you did!”
Ten grinned, “Pattern Changing Potion was the best potion!”
“Yeah, when you made that one, everyone ended up freaking out, even Professor Crewel. Great blackmail material.” Lu nodded, patting the pocket with the pictures, “I reckon that Nate will find some use for these. If not, it’s funny to look at."
Ten laughed, “I’m keeping the purple and orange poke-dotted cat one!”
Ten smiled. He remembered those few rare times he was able to team up with Lyssie. With their mutual disinterest in consequences, his creativity and her knowledge of potions ingredients was a match made in hell. At least that's what Dietrich muttered during their many five-man detentions.
“I wish Lys was here.” Ten said wishfully, “Alchemy Class would be even more fun if she was.”
Lu paled, “Never again. We only ever let our guard down a few times, Ten, but I swear, never again.”
It was like their minds became one for a moment. They pictured himself and Lyssie destroying things and laughing manically, Lu cheering them on, Jay trying to write down whatever they were doing just in case they did something cool and Dietrich being put in detention by association.
“The times we do are amazing.” Ten said longingly.
“No.” Lu said before sitting down beside Jay when they reached the table the others were waiting for them at, “Tell Ten no.”
“Ten. No.” Jay said to Ten before turning to Lu, “Why?”
“Lys, Ten, and potions.” Lu said simply.
Jay paled, “Ten. No.”
Ten pouted for a moment before bouncing back, “Hey, hey, Lu, show them what we got from Alchemy Class!”
Ten watched as Jay, Nate, and Dietrich paled. They always did that when he was excited and only had Lys or Lu to tell them why. So mean. However, their expressions quickly changed when Lu pulled out the pictures and laid them out on the table. Ten looked down at the pictures and started laughing again.
“These are very low-grade blackmail.” Nate said, but he still looked like a cat who caught the canary.
“This reminds me of our Third Year.” Dietrich said, his eyes shining with humor, “Before the bad happened.”
Ten snickered, “Yeah, it was the-”
“Was this how you were paying him?! Blackmail in exchange for revenge?!” A nasty voice yelled from beside them.
The group turned their head and saw a Savanaclaw student glaring at them. The student’s yelling and accusations attracted the attention of all the other students, which means all eyes were on them. The last class for the day ended and almost everyone was at the cafeteria for dinner and staring at them.
“Huh? What do you mean? We didn’t pay Nate anything.” Ten said.
“Then why are you giving him blackmail material?!” The student snarled.
Ten tilted his head, “We’re showing them to him, aren’t they funny?”
“What is wrong with you? Is there nothing in your brain?” The student asked, pointing his finger at Ten’s forehead, “You don’t just give things like this to Octavinelle students! I knew you were an idiot but this?!”
Ten felt a small ping of sadness in him but he didn’t flinch away. He was always told he was an idiot with a mind disease. Not even his parents expected much from him, but he changed. Lys changed him. She showed him that he had worth and that he wasn’t hopeless like everyone said he was. They didn’t know him like she does, she told him this once, which means she was right.
Ten didn’t react. He kept smiling. He didn’t react when the Savanaclaw student lifted him up by his shirt, the others would help him if he needed it.
Just as he was about to react, a strong pressure hit, and everyone struggled under the weight that was getting heavier and darker.
Ten didn’t care. Neither did Dietrich, Jay, Lu, or Nate.
“What. The. Blood. Hell. Were. You. Doing. To. My. Boys.” A deceptively calm voice rang out in the silence.
“LYSSIE!"
Standing at the open entry of the cafeteria was Lys. She was wearing her War Robes and her blue eyes had an icy glare to them. She had a fierce expression on her face, only amplified by the claw scar on her face, and… was she wearing makeup? That was definitely Josie, only she knew how to make Lys even scarier and prettier like that. She also had the Headmaster and all the Dorm Heads under the effects of the Petrificus Totalus Curse floating around her.
Lys smirked, “Miss me?”
Ten used the frozen (and scared, Lyssie still didn’t remove her heavy Dark colours from the room, it was just lingering there) Savanaclaw student as a springboard and jumped towards Lyssie to give her a hug.