Dead Faint

Stiles sprinted around the corner of the third floor corridor at lighting speed, pieces of parchment flying out of his bag as he raced down the marble staircase. The portraits tutted at him as he passed but Stiles didn’t have time to slow down. He’d done it. He’d finally figured it out.

Around another corner, Stiles darted past students leaving their last class of the day and tried not to think about how much trouble he would be in if he was caught. Running in the corridors would definitely earn him a detention, and that was something Stiles couldn’t risk. Not for the twelfth time in the last two months, anyway.

At the top of the staircase, Stiles hurled himself around yet another corner and down the next corridor, wich was empty save for a large set of oak doors that Stiles threw himself into, falling head first into the only bathroom in the school that hadn’t been used as such in the last twenty years.

Chaos greeted him as he pushed the door shut behind him with a soft click. Lydia Martin, a fellow fifth year in Ravenclaw house, sat hunched over a cauldron which was bubbling and spewing bright purple steam into the air already thick with vapour. She stirred the contents frantically, leaning back as far as her arm would allow to keep her face out of the onslaught of billowing lavender.

Scott McCall, another fifth year in Hufflepuff house was darting around, frantic at first glance, but on closer inspection casting a chilling spell to stop Lydia overheating from the heat emanating from the cauldron.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Lydia shouted as Stiles came into view, wafting smoke from his eyes. ‘Do you know how long I’ve been stirring this potion for you?’

‘Spoiler alert,’ Scott said, making a point to juxtapose Lydia’s hysterical tone, ‘it’s been ages.’

‘Sorry,’ Stiles said, throwing his bag down. From his pocket, he pulled out three chocolate frogs and a handful of herbs. ‘Lessons finished exactly five minutes ago and I was on the other side of the school. Plus, I had to try and avoid McGonagall on the first floor, and you know that she looks out for me.’

Lydia used a free hand to wipe a stray hair off of her face. ‘I didn’t listen to a single word of that,’ she said. ‘Now finish this potion before I pour it over your head.’

Stiles peered into the cauldron. It’s smooth, soapy purple colour reminded Stiles of the flowers that grew around the Black Lake miles below them, somewhere hidden in the school grounds. This was the part of potion making he disliked the most- the dizzying reminders of things he loved about Hogwarts that would inevitably be taken from him if he were caught.

Making potions out of class was a punishable offence at Hogwarts. Making a potion of your own- that was grounds of expulsion and Stiles had already dodged more than his fair share of bullets when it came to not getting caught.

Putting that thought out of his mind, Stiles unwrapped the three chocolate frogs in his hand and picked them one by one out of their boxes.

Scott stared at him in disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious?’

‘Deadly,’ Stiles replied. He let the frogs squirm between his fingers for a moment before he popped them into the potion. The effect was instantaneous. It stopped steaming and bubbling and boiling, and instead turned a strange greenish-blue colour. Stiles turned the heat down and took the spoon from Lydia, who slumped backwards happily.

‘I don’t know if putting the frogs in the potion makes it better or worse than you eating them in front of us,’ Scott said, pocketing his wand to sit down beside them. ‘I have literally never seen a chocolate frog in any recipe I’ve read in any book.’

‘You clearly haven’t been reading the right recipes,’ Stiles said breezily, dropping the herbs still in his hand into the potion. Multicoloured sparks darted across the surface.

Scott laughed. ‘That or you’re just mad and we don’t realise it because we’ve been friends for too many years.’

Stiles smiled. Both him and Scott had met Lydia on the Hogwarts Express on their first day of first year, all of them awkward and shy and a little sick to their stomachs at the thought of going to boarding school.

Lydia, her father a well-respected advisor at the Ministry of Magic, had grown up surrounded by magic, and to Stiles and Scott, who had all but grown up muggle born, every word she spoke held them in fascinated awe.

Scott had been Stiles’ best friend since birth and hadn’t even known that magic existed until his eleventh birthday. He had arrived at Stiles’ house that day with the look of someone who wasn’t sure if they were dreaming or part of an elaborate prank, or both. Stiles had understood his sentiment entirely.

His mother had been a witch, but Stiles didn’t have much memory of her having magic. His dad, a muggle, had tried to keep it alive for Stiles throughout the years, but there had always been a small part of him that hadn’t believed it. That was, until the small tricks he could do- which he had assumed everyone could do- became not so little, and he woke up one day with his nose pressed against the ceiling, his bed levitating six feet in the air.

Stiles had been able to do whatever spells he wanted since then. He had never needed a wand. It had been a shock to arrive on his first day at Hogwarts and realise that it wasn’t at all normal to be able to summon things to him without a word or set things on fire with a snap of his fingers.

Hogwarts had gotten used to him now, but that didn’t mean that they understood or accepted him. Mix that in with him being in Slytherin house, and resentment met him at every turn.

Thankfully, he had Lydia and Scott, and a few other friends to remind him that he wasn’t just a stereotype, that he was a good person. Most of the time.

‘I cannot believe,’ Lydia huffed as Stiles stirred the potion serenely, taking in the sweet, buttery scent now wafting out of the cauldron, ‘that I had to do the hard part. It’s not even my potion!”

‘Sorry, Lyds,’ Stiles shrugged. ‘I didn’t know it would do that.’

‘Which is precisely why I said you shouldn’t be doing it,’ Scott said, poking a rogue viscous blob of potion that had escaped the cauldron with the tip of his shoe.

Stiles sighed. ‘You’ve changed. What happened to my care free, loyal Scott who loved and appreciated everything I ever did?’

Scott scowled. ‘He died three third-degree burns ago.’

‘That was an accident,’ Stiles said sweetly. ‘And I fixed you up, good as new!’

Scott shrugged as if he couldn’t argue Stiles’ point. He had fixed Scott. It was beside the point that he was the reason that Scott had needed fixing in the first place. That was the occupational hazard of being Stiles’ friend. He always had something zooming around him, something on the brink of exploding or melting or burning. He was kinetic and clever and he didn’t see why any of that should have to change.

He kept stirring it for a while, always in the same way, a figure of eight anticlockwise three times, and then the reserve twice, then repeat. It became quite therapeutic after a while. The three of them sat in relative silence, watching as the potion faded through a rainbow of colour before settling on completely clear. At that point, Stiles stopped stirring and turned the heat off, satisfied.

‘That’s it?’ Lydia said, breaking the silence. She stared down into the cauldron curiously, scooping some up on the spoon and dripping it back into the potion. ‘No love potion I’ve ever seen looks like water.’

‘That’s what I wanted to happen,’ Stiles said. He took one of the test phials that he would usually use in potions class from his bag and filled it almost to the top with the potion. He looked at it closely. The liquid inside was perfectly clear. The only indication that it had even the slightest magic in it, were the tiny iridescent flashes across the surface of the potion when he shook it. ‘Amazing,’ he said quietly. ‘Who’d have thought that three chocolate frogs would be the answer?’

‘No one sane,’ Lydia said, no heat to turn her words sour. She took the phial herself and looked closer. ‘So obviously, you can’t just give this to someone as it is. It wouldn’t work. What do you need to add?’

Instinctively, Stiles reached up to the top of his head and pulled out a couple of hairs. He reached out and dropped a hair into the phial. As soon as the hair touched the potion, it turned a bright yellow colour, like liquid butter, and then settled back to its clear state.

‘That ought to work,’ Stiles said, taking the potion and stoppering it. ‘I wonder if it’s a different colour depending on who’s hair you put in?’

‘That would be cool,’ Scott mused. He looked longingly at the cauldron. ‘I wish I could give some to Allison.’

Stiles immediately reached out and slapped Scott on the back of the head.

‘Hey!’ Scott protested. ‘What was that for?’

‘For being an idiot,’ Stiles replied. He tucked the phial safely into his bag and then set to work tidying up the rest of the potion. ‘You know love potions are never the same as real love. They’re actually pretty cruel if you think about it.’

Scott, at least, had the good grace to look a little ashamed before he rounded on Stiles.

’Says the guy who just made a love potion,’ he said, watching as Stiles poured the rest of the potion into a bigger glass bottle. 

Stiles snapped his fingers again and watched the rest of the mess started to clean itself up. ‘For science, dude,’ he said airily. ‘I would never actually use it.’

‘Doesn’t that just feel like a waste of time though?’ Scott asked, dodging the cauldron as it marched itself to the sink. ‘Why bother making it if you’ll never use it.’

Lydia picked up the spoon, which clung to the edges of the drain to stop itself from falling through the grate, and popped it neatly into the cauldron, filling itself idly with soapy water. ‘Nothing is worthless if it makes better what we already have,’ she said. ‘Stiles is an idiot, yes, but he’s a smart idiot. He’s done something quite amazing. I’ve never seen a love potion so undetectable.’

Scott looked unconvinced, but shouldered his bag nonetheless and smiled. ‘You’re right about the smart thing,’ he said.

’Thanks, Scotty,’ Stiles replied, picking up his own bag and joining the other two at the door.

‘And the idiot thing,’ Scott replied. He ducked out of the door before Stiles could retaliate and started down the corridor, laughing, closely followed by Lydia, who linked arms with Scott as she caught up to him.

Stiles turned one last time. He waved the now washed cauldron and spoon into the cupboard under one of the sinks, and then, closing the door behind them, he followed the others to dinner, feeling a little heavier with the thought of the potion tucked away in his bag.

*

The next afternoon, Stiles arrived at potions class early. He went straight over to his usual table at the side of the room and started to set up. He sat alone in potions, being both too skilled and too frenetic to work with anyone on a regular basis, so he thought nothing of it when other students started to come in and the seat beside him remained empty.

Slowly the room filled with students, still groggy from breakfast, red and green ties in various states of disarray as the Slytherins filed into their side of the classroom and the Gryffindors on the other. A gang of particularly dishevelled Gryffindors Stiles recognised from the Quidditch team filled the row at the front of the room until the only seat left was one already laden with potion ingredients.

‘Lahey’s not in today, sir,’ Vernon Boyd, one of the Gryffindors said as he sat down. ‘Threw up three times this morning.’

The other students surrounding Boyd laughed and followed suit, their bags thunking against the stone floor as they were dropped.

Professor Slughorn, who had been pottering at the front of the room, turned with a grim expression on his face. ‘Delightful news, Mr Boyd, thank you.’ He paused. ‘Mr Hale, is there a problem?’

Derek Hale, the seeker on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, was hovering around the ingredients table, caught between sitting and standing. Even in this state of limbo he radiated the kind of aura that only the truly popular people at Hogwarts seemed to have hanging over them. He was tall- intimidating insomuch as his eyes were intense and narrowed, always searching. Classically handsome, Lydia called him. Stiles wasn’t sure anything about him was classic. Or handsome for that matter.

Stiles had been told on numerous occasions that his hate towards Derek Hale was completely unjustified, but the way Derek’s eyes always seemed just that little bit more unkind than the other way around, how he wrinkled his nose slightly when he looked at Stiles, knocked cold something deep in Stiles’ gut. More than anything, though, he hated that Derek, while good looking and a decent quidditch player, had absolutely nothing about him that made him special. He wasn’t clever or charismatic or even nice. He was just Derek Hale, resident hottie, and for that reason, and that reason alone, everyone loved him. It drove Stiles to distraction.

Looking around the room, Derek made a point of ignoring Stiles before he said, ‘I don’t know where to sit, Sir. There aren’t any spaces left.’

Slughorn glanced down at the used table infant of him, and then back at Derek. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. Tapping his wand against his nose absently,  he eyed the room for space. Stiles deliberately ducked his head and tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, a task easier said than done from the front of the room. Slughorn spotted the seat beside Stiles at the same time that Stiles tried to slide himself further under the table.

‘Ah!’ Slughorn said happily, beaming at the empty space beside Stiles. ‘There you go, Derek. You can sit next to Mr Stilinksi!’

Stiles’ stomach dropped.

At the same time, both Derek and Stiles said, ‘But-‘

They looked at each other. Ice slid down Stiles’ spine.

Derek turned back to Slughorn first. ‘Sir,’ he said, trying to be diplomatic, ‘I don’t think that’s the best-‘

‘Oh nonsense,’ Slughorn said, waving off Derek’s attempt at bargaining. ‘I’m sure Stiles can manage working with someone for one lesson, can’t you?’ The question, rhetorical and final, left no room for arguments. Letting out a heavy sigh, Stiles moved his things along the bench.

‘Sure,’ he said bluntly. ‘Not a problem.’

The next hour turned out to be about as horrific as Stiles imagined. Once Derek had settled, Slughorn told them that their task would be to attempt a very simple, but fiddly calming potion. At the end of the class, they were to drink their partner's potion to see how effective they were.

’At worst, you’ll feel a bit drowsy going to your next lesson,’ Slughorn reassured them after a mumbling of ‘what if I poison you?’ went around the room. ‘This isn’t a strong enough potion to do anything horrible to you, even if you get it slightly wrong. Other side effects,’ he said, checking off his fingers, ‘can include hiccoughs; mild cold symptoms; excessive yawning and heavy limbs. Nothing to worry about at all.’

Derek didn’t say anything, but he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat.

Stiles rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. Out of the pair of them, Stiles thought that he should be the one worrying about the side effects. Stiles had shared potions with Derek all year, and from his track record, Stiles had already mentally prepared himself to have hiccoughs for weeks.

They worked in silence mostly, getting on with their potions. Stiles enjoyed this class and this set of instructions were easy enough to follow. He even found it amusing watching Derek’s wide-eyed horror as Stiles’ ingredients started putting themselves into the cauldron under Stiles’ watchful eye.

It was easy to ignore Derek at first. There was nothing tricky about the potion if the instructions were followed correctly, and Stiles assumed that even an idiot like Derek could manage reading from the whiteboard. As the lesson progressed, however, it became increasingly obvious that reading and following the instructions was too much to ask and eventually, it became impossible for Stiles to ignore the impending disaster going on beside him.

‘You’re supposed to crush the beetles, not cut them,’ he said dryly as another beetle went skidding onto the floor. ‘It says on the board, right there.’ He pointed, surprised when Derek actually followed his finger to the blackboard.

‘Oh,’ Derek muttered, pulling his pestle and mortar towards him. ‘Thanks.’

Stiles watched him crush up his beetles and then nearly fell off his seat when he went to pour the entire contents into the cauldron. He grabbed Derek’s arm to stop him and could have burst into flames under the look Derek gave him. He let go.

‘Dude,’ he said, ‘are you actively trying to kill me?’

Derek’s eyebrows drew closer together in a dead frown. ‘More every second,’ he growled, looking back at the board. ‘Shit,’ he whispered. ‘A teaspoon.’ He busied himself adding the correct amounts and went back to ignoring Stiles, who finished his potion and contented himself to making the discarded beetles fly back into the jar on Slughorn’s desk.

‘Right, that should about do it,’ Slughorn said at the end of the class. ‘All your potions should now be ready. Please take a phial of your potion and give it to your partner to test.’

Stiles and Derek filled their phial at the same time, Stiles corking his immediately. Derek, however, sighed and reached down for his bag, where he’d left the cork for his phial. He pushed the bench back, taking Stiles by surprise. As Stiles’ bag caught under the feet of the bench it spilled its contents and Stiles, startled, dropped his potion which bounced, mercifully, on his bag and rolled under the table to join the quill, parchment and- Stiles’ heart leapt- his love potion.

He ignored Derek’s apologies in favour of diving under the table. Quickly, he shoved his things back into his bag, making sure to hide the love potion deep in his bag, before emerging with his calming potion in hand, a little red in the face.

‘It’s fine,’ he said breathlessly. He looked at the potion in Derek’s hands. It looked terrible. He gestured to it and said, ‘Shall we get this over with, then?’

Derek grimaced. ‘Are you sure you want to drink it?’

Stiles shrugged. ‘Honestly, I’m not sure. Better give it to me before I change my mind.’ He held his hand out and Derek placed his potion into it. Stiles looked at his palm. He knew the potion should have been a pale blue colour as opposed to the almost turquoise Derek had managed, but Stiles didn’t have much to lose. He uncorked it and swallowed it in one.

They waited.

Nothing happened.

‘Well that was anticlimactic,’ Stiles said. ‘I feel normal.’

Derek visibly deflated in relief. ‘Thank God.’ He nodded at Stiles’ hand, his potion still clasped there. ‘Shall I try yours?’

Stiles handed over the potion. ‘Sure.’

A few things happened in very quick succession once the potion had left Stiles’ hand. Derek brought it up to his eyes to look at it, shook it a little and uncorked it. It took Stiles a couple of delayed moments to notice two very important things. The first, being the iridescent colours that danced across the top when Derek shook the potion. The second, that the room had started to spin around him. From very far away, Stiles registered the calming potion in Derek’s hand, transparent where it should have been blue.

Derek brought the potion to his lips.

‘Wait-‘ Stiles started. Then, the room still spinning, he collapsed in a dead faint.

*

For the third time that hour, a book slammed down in front of Stiles. Dust billowed from the binding, and Stiles waved it away, coughing. The faded title read, Antidotes of the twenty first century: a complete collection.

‘This will have something for sure,’ Lydia said, heaving open the huge front cover and running a finger along the index. ‘Here. Love potions.’ She started flipping through the pages in a kind of frenzy.

Stiles sat and watched her. He couldn’t help feeling more hopeless the closer she got to the correct page.

‘This isn’t going to help,’ he said. ‘I made the potion up, Lydia. They’re not going to have an antidote written down in a book.’

‘Well we have to do something,’ she said, still furiously peeling back pages. ‘You’ve got Derek Hale- smart, handsome, quidditch captain, Gryffindor Derek Hale- to fall in love with you. This is serious.’

Stiles rolled his eyes. ‘We don’t know he’s in love with me. It might not have worked.’

Even as he said it, he knew he was kidding himself. He didn’t need the withering looks Lydia and Scott gave him to tell him otherwise.

‘What about the cure for acne you gave Erica?’ Scott asked, heaving another book onto the table.

‘Or the furball remedy you gave to Professor McGonagall?’ Lydia added, fixing him with a look.

Stiles huffed. ‘Yes, yes, thank you for reminding me that everything I ever do works perfectly. You’re both the worst.’

Lydia scoffed at him, but Scott carried on flipping through the pages of his book.

‘Look, it can’t be that hard to find an antidote,’ Scott said, eyes flitting between Cures and Remedies of the twentieth Century and Stiles’ notes. ‘We just have to do everything in reverse, right?’

Stiles took a long breath. ‘Scott, I love you, but that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘Well, you’re not being much help!’ Scott said, affronted. ‘At least I’m trying.’

‘And that’s truly endearing of you,’ Stiles said, pulling a smaller, more fragile book towards him. ‘But I don’t even know if the potion can be undone. That was the problem I had with other love potions. They could be undone with fire whisky or brandy or, god forbid, mulled wine.’ He tipped the book he was holding out of his hand and it soared across the room and back onto the book shelf. A second year browsing next to them jumped back and stifled a yelp of surprise. ‘I mean,’ he continued, rummaging in his bag for the bottle, ‘I added three chocolate frogs and six cloves of garlic. Please don’t ask me to make any sense out of this.’

It seemed like there was no other option but to avoid Derek as much as possible until he could come up with some kind of antidote, and even that was starting to feel like an impossibility. Ever since Stiles had left the hospital wing that morning, he’d somehow managed to see Derek everywhere: on the stairs after breakfast; on his way to divination; in the courtyard heading out to Herbology. He’d even bumped into him in the bathroom. Stiles had drawn the line at that. He couldn’t risk their lives being entangled. Not like this.

Lydia ran a hand through her hair. ‘We just need to think. Tell me again, what did you add after the garlic?’

Stiles opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. Lydia looked up at him when he didn’t answer, let out a little squeak of surprise and slammed her book shut.

‘Hey, Derek,’ she said in a breezy tone that sounded the opposite of casual. ‘What’s up?’

Scott, not so subtly knocked the stack of papers off the table with his elbow.

Stiles closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, composed.

Derek was dressed in his quidditch robes, his hair a wild, windswept mess. By all accounts, he looked extremely handsome and Stiles couldn’t help but hate him just a little bit for it. Despite there being three of them, his eyes never left Stiles.

‘Hi,’ he said in a voice all too soft to be real.

‘Hey,’ Stiles said, slipping his potion notes back into his bag where they could do no further damage.  He dropped his eyes and pretended to be interested in something on the hem of his robes.

Derek cleared his throat. ‘I er- I just wanted to make sure you were okay, you know. After yesterday,’ he added when Stiles didn’t respond.

Scott kicked him under the table.

‘Dude,’ Stiles hissed. He forced his eyes up to meet Derek’s. To Stiles, he looked normal. His eyes weren’t cloudy. His cheeks weren’t flushed. He hadn’t flung himself at Stiles in a fit of passion. The anomaly was that he was here, talking to Stiles willingly, openly, in front of other people.

‘I’m fine,’ Stiles said, finally clearing the table of their research.

‘Cool,’ Derek said. He shuffled on the balls of his feet, agitated. ‘So, we have transfiguration in a few minutes…’

Stiles blinked at him, once, twice, the end of Derek’s sentence fogging anticipation between the table and the bookshelf hiding them all from view.

This time, Lydia kicked him under the table.

‘Alright, fine,’ Stiles said, snapping out of it, eyes watering. ‘Let’s go. But only because I’m going there anyway,’ he added, shooting Scott and Lydia a look of deepest distain as he picked up his things and followed Derek out of the library.

*

‘Walking in with Hale?’ Erica Reyes- a fellow Slytherin- asked him quietly as he sat down. ‘Didn’t think he was your type.’

Stiles grimaced as he threw his bag down, still reeling from the awkward ten minutes alone with Derek he’d just had to endure. ‘Please don’t mention it.’

She laughed, leaning forward in her seat to get a better look at Derek as he slid into his seat beside Boyd. ‘He’s way too dull for you anyway, Stilinski. There’s no way he could keep up.’

Stiles rolled his eyes. ‘And I suppose you think you could?’

Erica flicked her hair. ‘If only you’d let me.’

They stared at each other, both daring the other to respond. Then, the tension breaking like the snap of a rubber band, they burst out laughing, loud enough that the few students around them turned to stare. Derek jerked his head back at the sound of the laughter and sent a small, private smile back at Stiles, who swallowed hard and ducked behind his transfiguration textbook.

Stiles tried to get through the lessons without thinking about that smile.  The class had been tasked with vanishing objects from one place to another, and most of the class had dissolved into various states of frustrated mania. Boyd had got so worked up with his feather that he’d set it on fire. Erica had succumbed to such a fit of giggles at this, that she had accidentally sent sparks flying out of her wand, scorching the desk and the back of an unsuspecting Gryffindor’s chair.

Stiles, having been able to vanish objects since he discovered his magic, had passed the lesson lazily vanishing his feather with the flick of his hand.

‘Stilinski!’ Professor McGonagall barked at him the third time he’d made his feather appear on her desk. ‘I know you can do this without, but will you please use your wand and vanish it somewhere other than my person?’

‘Sure thing, Professor,’ Stiles replied, walking to the front to take it from her hands. He smiled at her, then the feather, and watched satisfied as it vanished and reappeared on his desk.

‘I know, I know, I’m sorry,’ he said when McGonagall shot him a withering look. ‘Wands only in the classroom.’

On his way back to his desk, he passed a group of Gryffindors, including Derek, who all shot him looks of deepest loathing. Derek, however, was watching him with a surprised, intrigued expression, his mouth forming a little o shape at the impossible magic Stiles had just done. They caught eyes, and Stiles had to blink himself away before he said something stupid. Or did something stupid. Like set Derek’s robes on fire or eject himself from the room via the window.

Back in his seat, Stiles buried his head in his arms and growled in frustration. He had folded himself down on his feather and it tickled his nose. He brushed it away impatiently and made a firm point of not looking back at Derek, whose eyes were still fixed on him.

‘Got yourself a little admirer, lover boy,’ Erica crooned, waving her wand in an attempt to vanish her feather, which did nothing except go slightly translucent.

Stiles huffed. ‘No I do not,’ he said firmly. ‘He’s just never bothered to pay attention long enough to know I can do spells without a wand.’

‘Do you want him to pay attention?’ Erica hummed in a deeply irritating, smug imitation of her voice.

Stiles frowned and her feather started to burn at the edges.

‘Alright, alright, jeez,’ she said, hastily patting down the embers with the sleeve of her robes. ‘Don’t take it out on the feather.’ 

‘Sorry,’ Stiles mumbled, allowing himself to look over at the Gryffindors and turning quickly away when he noticed Derek looking at him again. ‘I just wish he’d stop staring.’

Erica opened her mouth to reply, but before she could say anything, Professor McGonagall tapped her wand against her desk and told them all to pack away their things, giving them three rolls of parchment on proper wand technique when vanishing objects.

‘You could do a lot worse than Derek Hale, Stiles,’ Erica muttered under the commotion of students getting up from their seats. ‘Trust me. I’ve dated my fair share.’ Then, blowing a kiss his way, she swung her bag over her shoulder and made towards the door. She made a point of ruffling Derek’s hair on the way out, shooting him a quick, ‘See you on the Quidditch pitch, Hale,’ before walking herself out into the bustling corridor, where she disappeared in the throng of students making their way to lunch.

Stiles tried extremely hard to ignore the soft blush that swept Derek’s cheeks as Erica left the room. He busied himself with his belongings and left the classroom as quickly as possible, ignoring Derek and the Gryffindors and not looking back until he was firmly swept away in the tide of students, invisible and safe in the growing crowd.

*

Stiles’ efforts in keeping away from Derek were almost successful for the rest of the week. It was almost like the universe was on his side for once, rather than actively campaigning against him. That was, until their next potions lesson, when despite there being a vacant seat on the Gryffindor side of the room, Derek made a beeline for Stiles’ desk.

‘What are you doing?’ Stiles asked cooly when Derek dropped his bag onto the floor behind Stiles’ chair.

Derek didn’t look at him, but carried on getting his equipment out all the same. ‘Getting ready for potions. You?’

Stiles squeezed his bag of crushed caterpillars so hard it was in danger of bursting.

‘I’ll be more specific,’ he hissed. ‘What are you doing next to me?’

Derek shrugged. ‘Am I not allowed?’

Stiles let out a noise of incredulity and gestured as subtly as he could behind them. Already the rest of the class were starting to whisper behind their hands. Isaac and Boyd kept sending scathing looks at them from their usual desk at the front.

‘People are going to start talking,’ he said under his breath. ’Once, because Slughorn told you to is one thing, but this,’ he waved his hand between them, ‘this is going to cause a scene.’

Derek didn’t seem that bothered by the looks they were getting. He glanced back at the class and shrugged.

‘You’re really good at potions,’ he said simply, sitting down. ‘I honestly don’t know why people aren’t fighting for this seat.’

Stiles gaped at him stupidly. He had a thousand reasons why no one would want to sit next to him and they were all balanced right on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill over and send Derek back to his usual seat. He was only stopped by Professor Slughorn, who swept into the room and started writing instructions on the board, signalling the start of the lesson.

Stiles spent the next hour in a state of frustrated agitation. He knew Derek was bad at potions, but he’d never actually taken the time to notice just how bad Derek was. It was like watching someone try to play quidditch on an old tree branch hit with a levitation spell. Every instruction either went ignored or misinterpreted and Stiles spent more time muttering ‘nope,’ under his breath every time Derek started anything new than concentrating on his own potion. 

‘What do you mean ‘nope’?’ Derek huffed the third time Stiles said it. ‘I’m doing it right. Look,’ he pointed at the whiteboard. Cut the newt tails.’

‘First of all,’ Stiles said blankly, ‘it says slice. They’re very different things in potions. It also says equal slices. Yours are… well.’ He grimaced at the mess on Derek’s bench and shrugged.

‘Oh,’ Derek said in a low voice. ‘Thanks.’

By the end of the lesson, Stiles had helped Derek so much that when he presented it to Professor Slughorn, he seemed to be genuinely quite impressed.

‘My my, Mr Hale. This is an improvement from last week!’ he said happily. ‘Clearly Mr Stilinski is a good influence.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Derek replied, giving Stiles a look that said ‘told you so.’

Stiles rolled his eyes and handed over his potion to Slughorn, who smiled satisfied.

‘Thank you, Mr Stilinski. If you don’t mind I’m going to give this to Madamme Pomfrey. She’s running a little short.’

‘Sure,’ Stiles replied, not missing the looks on the Gryffindor faces around him. He ignored them and walked back to his desk to pack his things, but he could feel their eyes on him all the way into the corridor.

‘Come on,’ Scott said, catching up with him in the entrance hall, spotting the Gryffindors’ coming up the stairs behind Stiles. ‘You know what I always do when people give me shit?’

‘Hex them and get lunch like a normal person?’ Stiles guessed thunderously.

‘No.’ Scott looped an arm through Stiles’. ‘I play Quidditch! Get that blood pumping!’ He jumped on the balls of his feet, as if that might inspire some enthusiasm in Stiles. All it did was make Stiles’ groan of protest more pronounced so that Scott had no choice but to start dragging Stiles out of the double doors and down the grassy bank towards the Quidditch pitch.

‘This is not how I wanted to spend my lunch hour,’ Stiles made clear when Scott handed him a broomstick from the large supply piled high beside the door of the changing rooms. For all of Stiles’ talents, flying was not one of them, and so why he was allowing himself to be forced onto a broom, his hands frozen solid and his butt cheeks aching, he did not know.

‘I hope you know how much this is killing me,’ he called across the pitch, his teeth chattering with cold. ‘It’s sandwich day. I’m missing meatballs and bread for this.’

‘Stiles,’ Scott said in a long, drawn out voice. ‘This is good for you. Plus, you totally owe me some practise for all the potion time I’ve given you recently.’ He drew level with Stiles at the goal posts and weighed the Quaffle in his palms. ‘My next game’s against Gryffindor so you know it’s important. Plus,’ he added, throwing the Quaffle into the air and catching it. ‘More practise means more chance of me beating them. You love it when they lose.’

Stiles scowled, watching in envy as Scott continued to throw and catch the ball, hands free, while he gripped onto his broom for dear life. Choosing to ignore that very logical argument, he shifted his weight so that he wobbled over to the middle goal post.

‘You know you’re just showing off now, right?’

‘Says you,’ Scott said, laughing. ‘I don’t get why you’re so afraid. You’ve blown yourself up at least twice. That’s way more dangerous.’

Stiles glanced down at the thirty foot drop below him and swallowed hard. ‘Because, Scott, despite the annoyance of having potions explode around me, I am in no danger of literally plummeting to my death.’

He gestured at the ground as if that made any difference.

Scott laughed. ‘You’re just upset because you’ve found something you can’t do perfectly first time.’

‘Am not.’

‘I beg to differ.’

‘Alright, alright, just throw the ball at me already, I’m freezing,’ Stiles said quickly. The fact that Scott was in fact, completely spot on made his bad mood all the worse.

Scott tossed the ball once more into the air and caught it effortlessly. ‘You know it’s called a Quaffle.’

‘Call it whatever you like,’ Stiles replied, gripping his broom tightly with both hands, ‘but if you don’t throw it soon I’m going to shove it-‘

Before Stiles could finish his sentence, Scott had thrown the Quaffle straight at him. Stiles didn’t have time to react before it flew past his ear and straight into the goal behind him.

They carried on that way for almost the entire lunch break, during which Stiles convinced himself three times that he had hypothermia, before the distant figures of other students started making their way across the pitch. Relieved to have an excuse to get back to solid ground, Stiles and Scott made their back down to the grass below. It was with the feeling of a balloon being popped that he realised that the students waiting to take over were the Gryffindor quidditch team.

‘Oh great,’ Stiles mumbled to himself as he dismounted. He could already see some of the team sniggering behind their hands, their eyes boring into him like so many pairs of laser beams.

‘Nice work, Stilinski,’ Isaac snorted from his spot at the front beside Derek. ‘At least McCall will have some practise getting a goal in before our game.’

‘Isaac,’ Derek hissed.

Stiles scowled. The smaller annoyances of the day, added to the bitter, awful feeling that he knew he hadn’t done one bit to help Scott with Quidditch itched something dangerous in Stiles’ stomach. Before he really knew what he was doing, he clicked his fingers and the broomstick in Isaac’s hand rocketed back so that the handle slammed straight into his face.

Isaac let out a cry of pain as Scott yelped, ‘Stiles! Be kind man, come on.’

‘Give me one reason to be,’ Stiles growled, watching with grim satisfaction as various members of the Gryffindor team hovered around Isaac to help him stem his bleeding nose.

Isaac spitting blood, pushed a third year girl aside and said, ‘Stilinski wouldn’t know kindness if it hit him in the face.’

‘Interesting analogy,’ Stiles said, raising his hand. ‘I could always do it again?’

Isaac looked like he wanted to reply, but Scott had already wrestled Stiles’ hand down and was making to bustle him off of the pitch.

‘Scott, let me go,’ Stiles growled, struggling against him.  ‘I do not need you to fight my battles for me.’

‘I’m not,’ Scott heaved, pulling Stiles away with all the force he had. ‘I’m preventing them from starting.’

Stiles stopped moving and Scott almost tripped. He could hear Isaac still raging to Derek about him, but to Stiles’ surprise, Derek was shouting back. In the wind whipping around him, Stiles only caught snatches of conversation, but he distinctly heard the words, ‘They’re not that bad, Isaac,’ before Scott managed to pull him away, back towards the castle, where Stiles sat for a long time thinking about who ‘they’ might be and why suddenly, in Derek’s eyes, they didn’t seem so bad.

*

The argument on the Quidditch pitch followed Stiles to potions the next morning, where, despite Stiles’ early arrival, a large gang of people were already gathering in the corridor outside the classroom door.

‘It’s not surprising Slughorn likes him,’ Stiles heard Isaac say in a carrying voice. ‘He likes all the Slytherins, it’s completely unfair.’

‘Don’t know why you sit next to him, Hale,’ a girl Stiles didn’t know said. ‘He’s a Slytherin. You can’t trust any of them.’

Stiles firmly turned his back on the gang and pretended to be looking for something in his bag. He could feel the heat creeping up his neck and he was determined that none of the Gryffindors would see that they were getting to him.

‘Of course you can’t trust him. He’s a cheat, everyone knows that. No one’s that good at potions. Especially not people like him.’

Isaac’s inflection on the word him sent a wave of cold through Stiles. He knew exactly what that word meant when it was said like a weapon and it never got any easier to hear.

‘I heard his Dad’s a muggle.’ Isaac added in an undertone, smirking as some of the girls giggled. ‘Completely useless, obviously. It’s just a shame his mum was never around to teach him how to respect-‘

Bang.

Stiles hadn’t turned around. Hadn’t even opened his mouth. He was used to Gryffindors talking about him. Hell, he was used to everyone talking about him. But the mention of his mum had jolted something white hot in the very centre of Stiles’ chest.

He allowed himself a small feeling of vindication at the scream that filled the hallway, followed by gasps and squeals as several glass bottles smashed unceremoniously onto the stone floor, before he turned, slowly to see the damage.

Isaac was hanging upside down as if an invisible nail had pinned him in thin air. His books were strewn across the floor, his smashed ink bottle thrown fragments of glass skittering around the Gryffindor’s feet.

‘Stilinski!’ Isaac yelled writhing around in the air like a fish caught on an invisible hook. ‘Put me down!’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Stiles said darkly, letting his eyes travel from Isaac’s feet to the carnage on the floor. ‘I don’t even have my wand out.’

Some of the Slytherins, who had now started gathering for class and were watching with wild looks of amusement, laughed. Most of the Gryffindors shot nervous looks at  Isaac, worried that they too might suffer Isaac’s fate if they said anything.

‘Everyone knows you don’t need a wand,’ Isaac growled, hanging uselessly. ‘Stop being a prat and put me down!’

‘Me a prat?’ Stiles started, ready to unleash the tidal wave of magic pouring into his fingertips. ‘Me?-‘

He paused, however, when Derek stepped forward, holding a hand out to stop him. ‘Stiles don’t,’ he said. ‘He’s not worth getting expelled over.’

‘You’re standing up for him?’ Isaac said when Stiles could only stare blankly back at Derek. ‘After all the crap he’s pulled.’

‘Oh, get over yourself,’ Derek replied. He tugged at the hem of Isaac’s robes, trying his best to pull him down. ‘Don’t we have enough to deal with without blood getting in the way? What is this, the nineties?’

‘You know I’m right, Derek,’ Isaac spat, waving his feet wildly to no avail. ‘He can’t just strut around hexing people and get away with it!’

Stiles raised an eyebrow lazily. Isaac went shooting up a foot higher into the air, screeching as he was pulled out of Derek’s reach.

‘Tell him, Derek!’

‘I’m not telling him anything. You were being an asshole!’

The door of the classroom flew open and, almost instantaneously, the rest of the class scarpered to the opposite side of the wall, leaving Stiles, Derek and an upside down Isaac to the mercy of Professor Slughorn, who surveyed the scene with a withering look.

‘Stiles, how many times do I need to tell you. You do not use your talents against your fellow students.’

‘Just one more time, Professor,’ Stiles said, still glaring at Isaac. ‘For luck.’

Slughorn sighed. ‘You know I’m going to have to put you in detention. You too, Mr Hale for your creative use of the English language. Clearly Stiles’ influence only extends to the confines of our classroom.’

‘No, Professor, Derek wasn’t-‘

‘Yes, Professor,’ Derek cut across him, drowning out Stiles’ protests. ‘We got carried away. Sorry.’

‘Both of you will re-organise the store cupboard tomorrow evening.’ Slughorn said, staring up at Isaac with a look of growing concern. ‘Now, please, would you let Mr Lahey down, Mr Stilinski? I’m afraid I can’t have another hospital wing visit on my hands.’

‘With pleasure,’ Stiles said. He clicked his fingers and Isaac flipped the correct way up and landed clumsily back on his feet. He even went the extra mile and got Isaac’s belongings to fold themselves neatly back into his bag. If he was a bit rough with the execution, Slughorn was none the wiser.

‘Now, inside, all of you,’ Slughorn said, holding the door open for the rest of the class. ‘We have a lot to get through this lesson.’

*

That Saturday brought weather so cold, the grounds were covered in a thick layer of frost that turned the whole school into the perfect image of Winter. Stiles had woken up early, got dressed, and headed straight up the many flights of stairs to the owlery. He wanted to send a letter to his dad before the normal Saturday postal rush turned the stairs up to the Owlery into a lethal, icy slip and slide.

The castle was quiet as he walked through it, just a few students milling around, waiting for breakfast. The odd seventh year student could be seen already bundled up in the Great Hall cradling mugs of tea, reading books or writing on lengths of parchment as he walked past, but they all seemed content to stay in the warmth and he managed to slip up to the Owlery undisturbed. 

Stiles was actually quite enjoying his walk up to the highest tower, when all at once a voice came from the room at the top of the stairs that neatly threw off Stiles’ good mood.

‘Oh God dammit.’

Stiles’ stomach flipped over and he jumped so hard he nearly slipped back down the steps. He grabbed the stone railing for support and turned back to see if anyone had caught him. Thankfully alone, Stiles took the last set of steps slowly, hoping that the voice he thought he recognised was just a trick of the cold air and early hour.

At the top of the steps, however, Stiles stopped dead.

Derek was standing in the middle of the Owlery, looking up at the canopy of birds above him with a twisted, agitated expression, holding his arm up as if to try and coax one of the bored looking owls down from the rafters. Stiles stepped inside.

‘Derek?’ He said it quietly, but it sounded twice as loud in the echoing room.

Derek jumped and spun around, the letter that he was holding crumpled in his newly formed fist. When he saw Stiles he relaxed.

‘Oh, Stiles,’ he breathed out. ‘Hi. Sorry, you scared me.’

‘Call us even,’ Stiles replied, stamping the frost from his shoes. ‘I thought you were dying or something.’

Derek blinked at him. ‘So you came to help?’

Stiles rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, I was coming in here anyway.’ He looked up and found the owl he was looking for. He whistled and a handsome Tawny owl flew down from the rafters and landed on his shoulder. Stiles let him nibble his finger affectionately and fed him a treat from the pocket of his coat.

He noticed Derek frowning at him with a mixture of resentment and longing and all at once things started to fall into place.

‘Do you not know how to get an owl down?’ Stiles said, nodding at the letter in Derek’s hands.

This comment was met with a frown so sincere, Stiles thought he might have actually touched a nerve.

‘I understand the concept,’ Derek huffed, glaring up at the owls. ‘The execution is a little difficult.’

‘Dude,’ Stiles laughed, stroking his own owl with the back of his hand. ‘But you’re like… the school’s best flyer. You should be one with the birds. The king of the owls.’

Derek shot him a scathing look. ‘The irony isn’t lost on me, thanks.’

Stiles choked back another laugh and lifted the owl from his shoulder. ‘Well, here. Take Mr Pickles. I can use another one.’ He extended his arm to Derek, who took a step back. Stiles’ eyebrows shot up. ‘You’re not actually afraid of Mr Pickles are you?’

Derek wrinkled his nose at the owl, who hooted softly on Stiles’ arm. ‘Mr Pickles?’

‘Scott named him,’ Stiles said. ‘His boss donated a bunch to the school. He’s a vet,’ Stiles clarified when Derek looked confused.

‘A what?’

‘A vet,’ Stiles repeated. ‘Like a doctor for animals.’

When Derek’s expression remained unchanged, Stiles let out a huff of indignation. ‘Oh my god, do pure blood families experience any of the muggle world?’

Derek shook his head. ’Not really.’

Stiles was surprised that there was a wistfulness in his voice. He cleared his throat.

‘Well, errr, a vet’s kind of like… St Mungos for your pets,’ he finished, trying to find the words. ‘We live by this huge forest back home so there were a lot of owls.’ He glanced up. ‘The ones Scott brought in are mostly abandoned chicks or ones we found injured.’ Once again, he held out Mr Pickles to Derek, who this time allowed him to balance the owl on his forearm. ‘This one’s my favourite.’

‘Scott’s a healer?’ Derek asked slowly, rigidly holding the owl as far as possible from him.

Stiles nodded. ‘It’s a summer job. Both our parents are muggles so…’

‘But I thought-‘

‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ Stiles waved him off. ‘I’m half blood. My mum-.’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘It’s not important.’ He forced a neutral expression on his face and nodded at the owl, who was being extremely good natured despite Derek holding him like a bomb that might go off at any moment. ‘He won’t bite you know.’

Derek didn’t look convinced.

‘If you’re not sure about him, why don’t you put him down. That way you might actually get your letter sent before May.’ Stiles pointed at a perch across the room and Derek, looking immensely relieved, took the owl over to it.

‘Thanks,’ Derek mumbled, fumbling to tie his letter to the owl’s leg. ‘I was actually kind of worried I’d never get this sent.’

Stiles looked at the letter and the neat, sloping handwriting across the front.

‘Mum or dad?’ He asked, calling another owl down for himself.

‘Mum,’ Derek replied. ‘She’s busting my balls because Cora’s being harassed by these assholes in fourth year but she won’t say anything to anyone.’

‘Fourth year?’ Stiles asked. ‘Gryffindor?’

‘Ravenclaw.’

‘Isn’t your sister in second year?’ Stiles asked, suddenly overcome with an emotion that usually led to someone getting their books vanished to the roof of the astronomy tower.

Derek nodded. ‘She won’t say anything because she’s convinced herself that none of the professors will help.’ Derek finished tying the letter to Mr Pickle’s leg and gave him a tentative stroke. ‘She’s so stubborn that she won’t ask for help. Not even from me.’ He watched as the owl took off with a soft hoot and turned back to Stiles, who was feeding treats to his new owl, Chewie. ‘She’s banned me from saying anything.’

Stiles hummed under his breath. ‘Do you know who it is?’

Derek nodded. ‘It’s four guys on the Ravenclaw quidditch team. Every time I see them, I want to snap their brooms in half.’

‘Why don’t you then?’ Stiles asked, letting his owl take off with his own letter.

Derek scoffed. ‘Oh yeah. Sure. Very funny.’ He shook his head and looked at his watch. ‘Shit, I have to meet Isaac.’ He grabbed his bag and made for the staircase. ‘Thank you for your help. Please don’t say anything about Cora. I’ll be murdered. Literally.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Stiles replied. He watched Derek descend the steps back down to the school, lost in thought until Chewie nipped him sharply on the ear and hooted in a very Lydia kind of way.

‘Not you as well,’ Stiles said, tying the letter to his leg. ‘I know what I’m doing, you know.’

Chewie hooted softly again in reply, then took off, leaving Stiles alone in the owlery feeling very much like he’d like to follow him into the open sky. 

*

Days later, the Ravenclaw quidditch team all mysteriously lost their broomsticks. They were found, stuck to the roof of the astronomy tower with a sticking charm so powerful it took three Professors to remove. No one was punished because no one had seen the culprit. Professor Flitwick, none the wiser, had assumed it was a Ravenclaw and had taken fifty points from the house when no one had owned up. After all, the broomsticks had been in the Ravenclaw common room before they were taken.

‘You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?’ Lydia asked him over breakfast the next morning.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Stiles said innocently.

‘Because a little bird told me the quidditch team might have been picking on the sister of a very popular Gryffindor seeker,’ she said, ignoring him in favour of stirring her pumpkin juice idly with her wand.

‘Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Stiles replied, not taking his eyes away from his textbook.

‘Well,’ Lydia said quietly, standing up and leaning down so that a curtain of hair blocked the rest of the Slytherin table from view. ‘I think it was really nice of you to do that for her.’

Stiles finally looked up and found himself nose to nose with her. ‘Do what?’

Lydia smiled. Stiles returned it.

‘I’ll check on the antidote later,’ she said, standing up. ‘See you in astronomy.’

*

The lead up to Christmas rolled in much quicker than usual that year, especially for the fifth years, who had all at once be reminded of their upcoming OWL exams. Stiles was in such a state of work-induced chaos that the antidote was pushed way down in the back of his mind.

He didn’t see much of Derek for the remainder of the term. As always at Hogwarts, the last few days before Christmas were so busy, Stiles barely had time to think, let alone dwell on the love potion. He didn’t even have Quidditch to worry about. The players on every house team had a kind of wild, manic look about them that was slowly seeping into the rest of the student population, leaving everyone in a weird state of excited hysteria. Even Scott was suffering and Stiles had taken to keeping Scott from landing face first in his porridge every other morning from across the Great Hall when his eyelids fluttered shut at breakfast.

It got so bad that by the last day of term, Stiles could be seen around school with various things flying around him as he walked in a haze between different classrooms. It was early one morning when Stiles paid the price for his inattentiveness.

He’d been sat for a while at the Slytherin table, a book propped open in front of him, leaning precariously against a jug of pumpkin juice. In one hand, a quill worked furiously across the page in front of him, in the other, a piece of toast hung, forgotten, between his fingers. Beside him, a second piece of toast was buttering itself as various other pages of notes were sorting themselves into neat piles and filing them into the bag on the floor. He was so focused on his notes that he hadn’t noticed the shadow fall across him, nor the sudden drop in noise from the people around him.

It was only when Erica, who happened to be sat a few seats down, threw a bread roll at his head that he looked up to see Derek standing over him, a wrapped gift in his hands.

All at once, the quill in Stiles’ hands dropped to the table, the pages of the book stopped turning. The knife buttering his toast clattered to the floor, landing beside the piles of parchment that had collapsed to the cobblestones.

‘Err, hi,’ Derek said, rubbing the back of his head uncomfortably. He glanced around at the people staring at him, clearly having not considered the impact that a Gryffindor, let alone Derek Hale Gryffindor, would have at the Slytherin table. He held out the little package in his hands to Stiles and said, ‘I thought… well. It’s almost the holidays and so, well…. Merry Christmas,’ he finished finally. When Stiles didn’t take the present, he put it down on the table in front of him, smiled in a way that made Stiles’ face burn, turned and walked away, leaving almost the entire Great Hall staring at him.

It took Stiles a couple of moments to piece together what had just happened before his limbs allowed him to scoop up his stuff and run out of the Great Hall, breakfast abandoned, holding the present that Derek had just given him.

He caught up with Derek just outside the double doors leading down to the grounds.

‘Hey!’ he called after him, panting with the effort of running with a bag full of books. ‘Hey, Derek!’

Derek stopped to let him catch up and when Stiles reached him, he found that he hadn’t actually thought about what he had wanted to say. Instead, he gaped wordlessly, looking up and down between Derek and the present in his hands.

Eventually, he managed a weak, ‘I didn’t get you anything.’

Derek blushed and waved his hand dismissively. ‘You didn’t have to. It’s more of a thank you, anyway. For all your help in potions. I totally aced that quiz the other day,’ he finished awkwardly when Stiles looked confused.

‘Oh.’ Stiles looked around him, wary of unwanted ears hearing. ‘Yeah. Well. You’re welcome.’

He swung back and forth on his heels, part of him desperate to run, another part hoping Derek would say something so he’d have to stay.

Eventually, Derek said, ‘Are you going home for Christmas?’ He said it so casually, like it was nothing. Like this was nothing. Like he hadn’t just erupted something terrifying inside Stiles.

‘No,’ Stiles replied, feigning a calm he wasn’t even close to feeling. ‘My dad works holidays, so I’m staying.’

‘Oh,’ Derek said. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t-‘

‘It’s fine.’ Stiles gestured at Derek. ‘What about you? You’ve got your sister, right?’

‘Sisters,’ Derek clarified. ‘Yeah we leave in the morning. I’m going to miss Hogwarts this year though.’ He looked up at the bell tower and the never-ending sky. ‘Something feels wrong about leaving.’

Stiles’ stomach lurched horribly. ‘Well, you’ll be back soon,’ he spluttered. ‘It’s not like, it’s like, you know, forever… or anything.’

Derek laughed but to Stiles he might as well have pushed him from the top of the tallest tower.

‘I guess you’re right.’

The bell above them chimed, making both of them jump. Flocks of students started pouring out of the double doors behind them to get to their lessons. Derek looked up at the time. ‘Wow, I am so late,’ he said, already starting his descent down the steps. ‘Have a good Christmas.’ He turned and followed the rest of the students down onto the grass, leaving Stiles standing alone on the steps.

*

Hogwarts always took a little bit of getting used to once everyone came back after the holidays. All at once, sleepy corridors and unchecked supply cupboards were bustling and impossible to sneak into, and the antidote, which was starting to require more attention, was getting harder to complete without raising suspicion.

That, as it happened, was why Stiles found himself hanging upside down through an open window of Greenhouse B on a Tuesday evening when he should have been studying astronomy. The window had been easy enough to open with magic, and Professor Sprout had been dealing with a problem in the Hufflepuff common room that had absolutely nothing to do with the stink bomb Stiles had convinced Scott to set off to create a distraction, and so slipping quietly through the entrance hall and out into the fresh, January air had been a cinch. The trouble had been getting into the greenhouse without being seen, which, Stiles considered with his feet in the air, was easier said than done when all you had was a window to work with.

Managing somehow to cram his way into the greenhouse, Stiles crept cautiously through the plants towards the large group of pepperwood plants- a small, dark, leafy thing that sneezed at the slightest touch- and picked off a handful of leaves, which he placed carefully into a small bag he’d brought with him. It was almost like being in class if he ignored the darkness and the creeping fear of being caught hanging over him.

He closed his eyes for a moment- just long enough to take in some of the warmth circulating the greenhouse. If he listened hard enough, it was almost as if he could hear the plants breathing in their steady, cyclical rhythms; an unexplored lullaby only for Styles to hear. When he opened his eyes, the sky sprawled above him in a way it only ever did at Hogwarts. The stars were brighter here, touchable almost. They seemed to go on forever.

Sometimes he wished he could set up his own dormitory out in the open instead of dungeons, feeling like the ceiling might collapse on him at any moment. Stiles was not built to be contained. He needed the sky and the biting air and the smell of things living just like him: free and wild and a little bit different.

He took a deep breath. It was time to go.

Elegance didn’t come easily to Stiles, but there was no getting around the way he started to crawl back through the window. It was just too high for him to step through, and so he had to hoist himself up and let gravity take its toll as he attempted to drag first his head and arms, and then his torso, back through the gap he’d made himself.

He was almost halfway out when a voice from overhead said, ‘Stiles?’ causing him to jump so violently, he nearly slipped back through the window.

‘Shit, Jesus,’ he yelped, scrambling at the glass as he slipped. He looked up, and half wished he’d accepted his fate and tumbled back into the greenhouse. ‘Derek? What are you doing here? You scared the crap out of me.’

‘I had Quidditch practise,’ Derek said, gesturing at his robes. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Me?’ Stiles looked around desperately, hoping to find some inspiration. When none came to him, he said, ‘Would you believe me if I told you I was totally allowed to be here?’

Derek tilted his head a little to get a better view of the other half of Stiles, which was still stuck halfway through the window and winced.

‘I’d have a hard time believing it to be honest.’ He dropped the broomstick that he had been holding and held his hand out to Stiles. ‘Do you need a hand?’

Swallowing his pride, Stiles accepted and allowed Derek to pull him onto the grass. He stood up and brushed himself down, then turned back to Derek.

‘Thanks.’

‘No problem,’ Derek said, picking his broomstick back up. ‘Are you supposed to be sneaking about in the greenhouses at night?’

‘Not strictly speaking, no,’ Stiles replied. He looked quickly at Derek. ‘You aren’t going to tell McGonagall are you?’

Derek laughed. ‘No. Not if you tell me why you were in there.’

Stiles felt his stomach drop. ‘Oh, sure, err…’ he gestured vaguely around for a bit before saying the first thing that came to mind. ‘I come down here sometimes. To think.’

It wasn’t untrue as much as it was a bending of the truth. He did come down to the greenhouses sometimes. It was usually during the day and more often than not supervised, but what Derek didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

’To think?’ Derek said slowly. ‘Can’t you do that in the dungeons?’

Stiles rolled his eyes. ‘Would you be able to think down there?’

Derek thought about that and then shook his head. ‘Fair enough.’

‘Look,’ Stiles said, looking around to check they were still alone. ‘Please don’t say anything to anyone, especially not Lahey. I get enough grief as it is without everyone thinking I sneak around talking to plants in my spare time.’

‘Do you talk to them?’

‘Not out loud.’

Derek laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t say anything. I get it.’ He shifted the broomstick in his hand. ‘That’s why I fly. It’s like I can’t breathe until I’m up in the air, you know?’

Stiles froze. He did, as it happened, know exactly what Derek meant.

Every part of him screaming ‘yes’, Stiles shook his head and laughed. ‘I prefer my coping mechanisms on solid ground thanks.’

Derek smiled. ‘I think you’d like it if you tried it.’

‘You’d have a hard time convincing me,’ Stiles shot back.

‘Let me try,’ Derek said.

Stiles stared at him, caught between reality and something he couldn’t quite have. ‘Try… to teach me? To fly?’

‘Why not?’ Derek said. ’You might like it. Then you wouldn’t have to sneak into greenhouses.’

Stiles wasn’t sure why he followed Derek to the Quidditch pitch. It could have been the lie that he was trying to keep up, the idea that nothing at all was wrong, that this had all happened on its own. It could have been the potion kit that Derek had got him for Christmas sat, tucked away in his trunk. It could have been any number of things, but deep down, Stiles knew it had less to do with any of that and more to do with the antidote simmering, unfinished in an abandoned bathroom back in the castle.

‘Right,’ said Derek once they’d made their way back to the pitch and found Stiles an old broomstick. ‘Let’s start small.’ He got on his broom and kicked off the ground so that there was only a handful of feet between his shoes and the floor. ‘Come up and join me.’

Stiles looked up at him and immediately felt the ground lurch beneath him. ‘You know,’ he said, backing away, ‘I thought we could start a little slower. Maybe some floor work-‘

‘Stiles.’ Derek cut him off. ‘Get on the broom.’

This time, Stiles did as he was told. He closed his eyes before he pushed off, his breath trapped in the back of his throat. He heard Derek laugh and cracked one eye open. He was hovering in mid-air, the ground not far -but too far -away from him. He gasped and would have slipped straight off the side had Derek not caught him.

‘It’s alright,’ Derek said in his ear. ‘I’ve got you. Just relax.’

‘Easier said than done,’ Stiles said, gripping the broom so tight his knuckles turned white.

Derek’s hand came to rest on the base of Stiles’ spine and Stiles tensed against it, then softened.

‘Are you scared of heights?’ Derek asked, manoeuvring himself beside Stiles. He put his spare hand on the handle of Stiles’ broom, steadying it.

‘I don’t know,’ Stiles said, swallowing hard. ‘Not always. I don’t trust these things,’ he looked down at the broomstick. ‘There’s nothing to distract me from the thought of falling to my death.’

‘I could distract you, if you like?’ Derek replied.

There were a few answers to that question, none of which could be said out loud. Instead, Stiles looked up at the sky and tried to count the stars. That, at least, stopped him from thinking about all the space beneath him.

He hadn’t noticed that Derek was guiding them back to the pitch until his feet brushed against the grass. Grateful to be back on solid ground, Stiles slid off his broom and watched as Derek continued to hover on his.

‘Is that it?’ Stiles asked hopefully. ‘Can I go now?’

Derek laughed. ‘Absolutely not.’ He held out his hand.

Stiles stared at it.

‘What,’ he asked, ‘would you like me to do with that?’

‘Take it,’ Derek replied.

Stiles’ heart started to beat very fast then and he wasn’t entirely sure if it was just the fear of flying that was causing it. This wasn’t the first time they’d touched that night, but somehow this was so much more than that. His hand twitched forward, but stopped.

‘What if people see?’ he said quietly.

‘I don’t care.’ And with that, Derek grabbed Stiles’ hand and pulled him onto his broom. Impossibly close, Derek covered Stiles’ hands with his own. ‘Hold on,’ he said and kicked off from the ground, hard.

They soared into the air so fast, Stiles could barely see for the wind in his eyes. Blinking away tears, he yelped as his vision cleared. They were so far in the air, the goal posts had started to shrink away.

’No no no no,’ Stiles moaned as Derek started twisting and turning through the sky. ‘Put me down, Derek. I’m serious! I can’t do this.’

But Derek didn’t hear him, and if he did, he didn’t listen. He simply pulled Stiles closer and wrapped his arms around him, so that almost his whole weight was resting on his back.

‘Relax,’ he shouted over the wind. ‘You won’t fall.’

‘How do you know?’ Stiles yelled back.

‘I’ve got you.’

They soared and dipped and dived through the air for what felt like hours. Stiles started to notice things from this height that he hadn’t before. The stars were closer, the air fresher. All his problems seemed to be wrapped up and stored back in the castle that was now tiny beneath them. For now, it was just him and Derek and the night, which expanded in every direction.

When they finally got back to solid ground, Stiles was weightless.

‘That was… actually kind of amazing,’ he said, breathlessly.

Derek beamed. ‘I told you there was no reason to be scared.’ He led the way back to the changing rooms where their bags were still neatly stowed. ‘Next time, you’re coming up on your own.’

Stiles laughed. ‘You know, an hour ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.’ He picked up his bag and rummaged around inside. His fingers brushed the bottle of love potion and froze.

Derek was pulling his quidditch robes off, chucking them onto his bag as he went. He looked so happy. Happier than Stiles had ever seen him. Stiles closed his eyes.

‘Hey, Derek,’ he said, swallowing past the lump in his throat. ‘Did your letter arrive okay?’

Derek turned and finished pulling on his school jumper. ‘My letter? Oh-!’ he smiled widely. ‘It did. That owl was awesome. Thank you.’ 

‘Maybe I can teach you how to wrangle a few more so you can go it alone,’ he added, ‘so you don’t get sent to the hospital wing with missing fingers.’ 

Derek laughed. ‘That would be great,’ he said. Then, rubbing a hand over the back of his head, he continued, ‘I actually need to thank you. I know it was you that stuck the Ravenclaw’s broomsticks to the astronomy tower. It meant a lot to Cora, so… thanks.’ 

Stiles blinked. ‘I don’t know what-‘

‘No one else can do a sticking charm that strong,’ Derek cut across him. ‘And you’re the only person who knew outside of my family.’

Stiles blew out a breath. ‘Well… I mean, I won’t make a habit of it.’

Derek smiled, his eyes so soft Stiles could have melted into them. He handed Stiles his bag. ‘Cora says you can come to our house any time. I think she likes you.’

They wandered back up to the school in comfortable conversation. Stiles was so full of post flying endorphins that he completely forgot that they were definitely not supposed to be out of their dormitories. They made it all the way to the entrance hall before a very harassed looking Professor McGongall greeted them by the marble staircase.

When he saw her, Derek froze, his eyes the size of dinner plates. Stiles let out a strangled noise of surprise that lost itself in his throat under the look Professor McGonagall gave him. 

‘I trust you both have a good reason to be wandering the grounds after hours,’ she said in a voice that did a poor job at feigning her anger.

‘Professor, it’s my fault-‘ Stiles started. He stopped when Derek elbowed him hard in the ribs. ‘Ow, dude, what the-‘

‘We lost track of time, Professor,’ Derek said in a voice that could melt butter. ‘Stiles was helping me organise the Quidditch cupboard and didn’t see the time. It won’t happen again.’

McGonagall raised her eyebrow. She clearly didn’t believe the lie, but said nonetheless, ‘You’re correct, Mr Hale, it won’t happen again. And to ensure it doesn’t, I will be taking fifty points from both Gryffindor and Slytherin house.’

Stiles saw Derek wince out of the corner of his eye and wondered briefly if Derek had ever lost Gryffindor so many points in one go.

‘You will also both receive detention. I have a large pile of old exams that need filing,’ McGonagall carried on. ‘Tomorrow evening in my classroom.’ She wrinkled her nose and adjusted her dressing gown. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I suggest you both get back to your dormitories before I make it two days.’

‘Yes, Professor,’ Stiles and Derek chorused together.

Without waiting for a dismissal, Derek crossed Stiles and made his way up the marble staircase, followed by McGonagall, who swept past him and up into the corridor beyond.

Halfway up the stairs, Derek turned back to Stiles, a huge grin spread across his face.

‘See you tomorrow,’ he said in a hushed whisper.

Stiles waved him off before heading the opposite way towards the dungeons. 

Back in his dorm, Stiles sat up for hours on his four poster bed, staring at the bottle of love potion that he’d kept in his bag. A tear bounced off the glass and Stiles brushed the next away angrily.

Through the hangings of his bed, he could see the lake, glittering and eerie around him. He wished, not for the first time, that his dorm room was anywhere other than the dungeons.

*

‘We need to stop meeting like this,’ Stiles said the next evening as he pushed the door of the transfiguration classroom open to see Derek already hard at work filing papers.

‘It was worth it,’ Derek replied, stopping to hand Stiles his own bundle of documents to organise. He still had a bright, excited aura about him left over from the night before that Stiles couldn’t help but be drawn towards- an unwilling star being pulled by the sun. ‘I haven’t had so much fun getting into trouble in ages.’

Stiles laughed. ‘Since when do you ever get in trouble?’

Derek shrugged and tucked a stack of papers into one of the many filing cabinets at the front of the room. He handed Stiles another stack when he was done and went back to organising a folder marked OWLS 1996.

‘You know,’ Stiles said, running his eyes over NEWTs 1979, ‘when I got my Hogwarts letter, I thought it would be so wild. Like cauldrons in the woods at midnight wild.’ He considered the test paper in his hands with disdain. ‘I didn’t think there’d be filing cabinets to organise.’

Derek laughed again. ‘What did you think wizards used? Jack’O Lanterns?’ he asked. 

‘I don’t know,’ Stiles mused. ‘It didn’t occur to me that wizards needed organisation.’

‘Did you not know anything about magic before you got your letter?’ Derek asked, looking up from his file. He chucked the papers into a sack that was clearly supposed to be rubbish and sat back on his heels.

Stiles considered his questions carefully. The truth was, he didn’t really know. He had always guessed, hinted at knowing, but it had always been just over the edge of impossibility. He hadn’t even thought to ask his dad until he’d had no choice.

‘Bits and pieces,’ Stiles settled on after a while. ‘I think a part of me knew something was going on, especially when Scott was going through similar stuff, but I guess I just thought it was normal.’ He paused, thinking. ‘I could always do tricks. That’s all they ever were, though. It didn’t even cross my mind to ask.’

Derek looked like he wasn’t sure if he was overstepping when he asked, ‘You said your mum was a witch, right?’

Stiles nodded. ’She was. She died when I was really young. I don’t really remember much of the magic.’ He noticed that his nails were starting to make dents in the palms of his hands and unclenched them. He cleared his throat. ‘But anyway, enough about my tragic past. Let’s get back to ruining the illusion of magic for children everywhere, shall we?’

They worked in silence for a while, Stiles taking great delight in reading over all the failed NEWT exams and laughing at the answers that were too ridiculous to be anything other than a joke. Eventually, though, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he realised Derek was looking at him with narrowed eyes.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked, his collar starting to heat up under the scrutiny.

Derek’s eyes narrowed even more. ‘How did you stick those broomsticks to the Astronomy Tower?’

When Stiles’ eyebrows shot up, he backtracked.

‘I mean, I know it’s a sticking charm, but…’ Derek trailed off under the look Stiles was giving him.

Stiles shrugged but didn’t look at Derek directly when he replied, ‘You’ve seen me in Charms. You figure it out.’

A moment, and then. ‘It really pissed the Ravenclaw team off, you know.’

‘They don’t know it was me.’

Derek laughed. ’Keep telling yourself that. No one else could have pulled that off.’

Stiles tucked the last of the exams away with a satisfying thunk and closed the cabinet door.

‘That’s absolutely not true. Half of the eighth years would have been able to do that without batting an eyelid.’

Derek made a face that said ‘fair enough’ and closed his own filing cabinet. ‘Okay,’ he conceded, stretching. ‘But what would an eighth year want to do with the Ravenclaw Quidditch team?’

‘What would I?’

To help me,’ Derek said.

Stiles bit his lip, breath catching.

‘And why would anyone assume I would want to help you?’

‘Because,’ Derek said, grinning. ‘Under all that Slytherin pride, I think that most people know you’re a good person.’

Stiles’ mouth had all at once become very dry. His palms were pooling magic. He balled them in fists at his side and stared fixedly at a spot on the floor by Derek’s feet. 

‘I’m not a good person,’ he croaked. ‘Trust me.’

There was a pause in which Stiles refused to look away from the spot on the floor. Then, out of the corner of his eye he saw Derek’s hand twitch towards him and then change it’s mind.

‘I think you’d be surprised who might disagree.’

Stiles stood up very suddenly. He swallowed and looked around for the door. The room all at once seemed much bigger than it had when he’d entered it.

‘I should go,’ he said thickly. ‘Tell McGonagall I’ll finish up tomorrow if she has any more of these to do.’ He picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. ‘See you in potions.’

He left the room quickly, leaving Derek- once surrounded by a sea of paper- alone, staring after him, even as the door swung shut behind him.

*

‘You’re not eating.’

Scott threw his bag onto the bench next to Stiles at breakfast a few days later, sending a first year Slytherin girl toppling sideways as he swung himself into his seat.

Stiles, who had been staring at the toast on his plate with only a half interest, rolled his eyes.

‘Can I ever have five minutes peace?’

‘Why aren’t you eating?’ Scott demanded, ignoring him. He reached up and placed the back of his hand against Stiles’ forehead, concerned. ‘Are you sick?’

‘No I’m not sick,’ Stiles said, swatting his hand away impatiently. ‘I’m just not hungry, alright?’

Scott, looking entirely unconvinced, leaned in closer and glanced over his shoulder with the subtlety of a hypogryff at a dinner party.

‘Is this because of D-E-R-?’ he stared before Stiles stifled the rest of his sentence by wrestling him forcefully into a headlock. ‘Alright, alright,’ Scott gasped when Stiles let him go. ‘Is it, though?’

Stiles didn’t answer right away. Derek hadn’t spoken to him at all since their detention together. It had been a blessing that the weekend had rolled around without any more lessons with the Gryffindors, but even so, Stiles had gotten more and more frustrated with himself for wanting Derek’s attention. Every time Stiles saw a red tie, or the tail end of a broomstick, his stomach dropped five stories to the basement below.

But Derek hadn’t spoken to him. Stiles hadn’t wanted him to. Until it had been the only thing he wanted.

To answer Scott’s question, Stiles shook his head. He knew Scott could tell that he was lying, but it was too much to admit it out loud.

Scott opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he was about to say was lost in a sudden outburst of sound coming from the entrance hall. Students had started to gather around someone who was shouting loud enough for Scott and Stiles to hear from the other end of the Great Hall.

‘What’s going on?’ Scott asked, standing up.

Stiles followed suit, abandoning his toast to follow Scott down the length of the Slytherin table towards the double doors.

When they reached the growing crowd of students, they shouldered their way to the front to get a better view. A Gryffindor girl, no older than second year, was standing opposite a group of older Ravenclaw students, her wand outstretched. It took Stiles a second to see the other, smaller girl standing just to the side of the first girl, books scattered around her as she scrambled to pick them up. It was clear that she was trying very hard not to cry.

‘You are such arseholes,’ the first girl shouted, eyes flashing. ‘You think just because you’re older, you can push everyone else around.’

‘Put your wand away,’ one of the Ravenclaw boys replied, laughing. ‘What’re you gonna do? Put a tickling jinx on me?’

The students around him laughed, which only made the girl’s cheeks flush with rage. She looked weirdly familiar to Stiles, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

Before Stiles had time to figure it out, she waved her wand in a complicated sort of way and a jet of sparks shot out of it, hitting the older boy directly in the chest. As if possessed, the boy’s legs started moving uncontrollably in an odd sort of river dance that didn’t match up with the rest of his body. His top half was three seconds behind, flailing around madly trying to stop it’s legs from getting faster.

‘That was for being a prick,’ the Gryffindor girl said viciously, raising her wand again at the other Ravenclaws, who, despite themselves, shrank back. ‘Anyone else?’

Stiles could feel pieces of information start to connect all at once. Without really knowing why, he stepped forward.

‘Cora! Stop!’

Stiles froze as Derek sprinted past, knocking Stiles sideways into Scott. He skidded to a halt in front of the Gryffindor girl, arms outstretched, putting a barrier between her and the Ravenclaws.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, horrified. ‘Do you know how much trouble you could get into?’

‘I don’t care, Derek!’ she shouted, wand still pointing at the Ravenclaws. ‘They think they can do anything they want and it’s not right!’

Derek moved forward, hand reaching for her wand.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But there are ways of doing things. You can’t just-‘

‘Hale!’ the Ravenclaw fourth year Cora had jinxed shouted, legs still moving uncontrollably despite his friends’ best efforts to stop them. ‘Tell your psycho sister to fix me!’

That, apparently, was all it took to change Derek’s mind. A darkness filtered into his expression like nothing Stiles had ever seen as he whirled round to face the Ravenclaws.

‘You should have quit while you were ahead. Or should we stick your big mouth to the Astronomy Tower next?’

This was followed by a smattering of laughter from the surrounding crowd, which by now had filled almost the entire Entrance Hall.

Ignoring everyone else, Derek span back round to face his sister. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘go to class. I’ll sort this out.’

‘I don’t need you to fight all my battles for me, Derek,’ she said, looking more and more like the twelve years she was, and less like the raging whirlwind from moments before. ‘Laura said-‘

‘I don’t care if Laura told you to marry the giant squid,’ Derek replied. ‘You are not getting yourself expelled over a few idiots.’

They carried on talking, but Stiles’ attention was pulled away by a sudden movement from the Ravenclaws. They had finally managed to stop their friend’s legs from dancing and had rounded on Derek and Cora without either of them noticing. The one who had been jinxed, his face almost purple with embarrassment and rage, raised his wand at the same time as Stiles raised his hand.

The resounding crack as the Ravenclaw’s jinx hit Stiles’ shield charm made everyone in the entrance hall jump backwards in fright. A few girls at the front of the crowd screamed.

Derek spun around just in time to see Stiles’ charm vanish into thin air.

He looked up into the crowd and found Stiles, who stared right back, pinned to the spot by something much more complicated than the hundreds of eyes staring at him.

‘Stay out of this, Stilinski,’ one of the Ravenclaws spat. ‘Or are you Hale’s babysitter now as well as his personal tutor?’

Stiles dragged his attention away from Derek and stared at the Ravenclaws. There were five of them. Three of them were on the Quidditch team. Two of them Stiles had never seen before.

Ignoring the heat creeping up his neck, Stiles squared his shoulders. ‘You know,’ he said, his voice loud in the waiting hall, ‘I’m liking Derek’s idea more by the second. What was it he said?’ He snapped his fingers and the Ravenclaw’s bags started to drift upwards, as if pulled by invisible strings. ‘Something about the Astronomy Tower?’

‘What on earth is going on here?’ said a shocked voice.

Professor McGonagall, her arms full of books, had stopped halfway down the marble staircase.

Students scarpered out of the double doors into the grounds, or else slipped quickly down staircases to their lessons, until only a handful remained.

‘I won’t ask again,’ she said briskly, joining them at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Nothing, Professor,’ one of the Ravenclaws replied, daring anyone to argue with her. ‘Just a misunderstanding, that’s all.’

‘I should hope for your sake that that’s all it was,’ McGonagall said briskly. She looked down at her watch. ’Now off to class, all of you. You’re going to be late.’

She marched off, followed by the Ravenclaws, who gave Stiles and Derek one final, filthy glance before climbing up the marble staircase and out of sight.

Stiles waited until they were entirely out of view before crouching down next to the first year girl, who hadn’t made it back up to standing after gathering her books.

‘Are you alright?’ Stiles asked her quietly.

She nodded and stood up, clearly terrified of being addressed by an older student, especially one who had just threatened to stick people to the Astronomy Tower.

‘Thank you,’ she said in a high, squeaky voice. Then, she turned and ran off to class, her bag knocking against her knees as she ran.

‘Thank you, Stiles,’ came a quiet voice behind him. Derek was hugging Cora, who looked pale.

Stiles shrugged. ‘You’d have done the same for me.’

Cora sniffed. ‘You were awesome.’ She let go of Derek, made the three steps to Stiles and hugged him too.

Stiles blinked, stunned. ‘Err, thanks,’ he said, relieved when she let go.

‘Go to class, Cora,’ Derek said, his eyes never leaving Stiles. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

Cora did as she was told, leaving Derek, Stiles and Scott alone in the Entrance Hall. Seconds passed in complete silence before Scott cleared his throat.

‘Dude, divination,’ he said, hiding a smile behind the back of his hand.

Stiles nodded. He looked away.

‘See you around,’ he muttered to Derek, joining Scott at the bottom of the marble staircase.

It took everything in him not to look back.

*

Something had been brewing amongst the fifth years since Stiles’ altercation with Isaac outside potions. Word had spread quickly in the days after it had happened, but Stiles, preoccupied with Derek and his entire life doing a complete one-eighty, hadn’t taken much notice. The stunt with the Ravenclaws, and the ordeal in the Entrance Hall however, had tipped the world out of balance, so much so that Stiles could no longer ignore the scathing looks being thrown at him in the Great Hall.

It didn’t matter that Stiles had denied sticking the broomsticks to the roof of the astronomy tower. It didn’t matter that he had been standing up for a first year. All that mattered was that he was at the centre of it all- unwillingly stuck in the middle of a house-wide stand off.

It got so bad that Stiles mostly kept himself to the library, hiding behind stacks of books, practising his wandless magic when no one else was looking. Failing that, he tucked himself away in the bathroom, tending to a potion that had long since been finished. He knew he should have said something by now- Scott and Lydia would be livid if they found out- but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Maybe that was why, after a whole week of not speaking to Derek, Stiles was surprised when one of Scott’s owls found him in the library late one night. It pecked on the window until Stiles opened it, letting in a gust of late Winter air. Stiles shivered as he untied the letter from the owl’s outstretched leg and allowed him to fly back out into the dark sky. It was a short note- only two sentences long, but it set alight something dangerous inside of Stiles.

‘Meet me at the Quidditch pitch? I want to show you something- Derek.’

Derek.

Stiles read the note twice, three times over. Derek wanted to meet him. 

But why? he asked himself. He looked around to see if anyone else was in the library. They weren’t. He was alone. Tucking the letter into his pocket, Stiles waved a hand over the books he’d left scattered over the table top. The books slid themselves back into place on the bookshelf in front of him as Stiles quietly slipped out of the library into the darkening corridor.

It was clear but cold when Stiles had made his way down to the entrance hall and out into the grounds. He wrapped his cloak around himself tightly and watched his breath blow out into the air infront of him in a faint cloud of white.

It was much chillier down by the Quidditch pitch with fewer buildings to shield against the late evening breeze and Stiles walked quickly, Hogwarts shrinking into the distance behind him. As he got closer, he noticed that the light was already on in the changing room closest to the entrance to the pitch.

‘Derek?’

Stiles pushed the door open to a wave of warm air. A candle was burning on the table nearby, flickering light across the empty room. Stiles stepped inside and put his bag down on one of the benches lining the walls. His shadow skipped across the walls with each step further over the threshold, following him as he peered around the corner concealing the broom cupboard.

‘Derek?’ he tried again. A creeping feeling was settling into the hairs at the base of his neck. It occurred to him that he was very alone down here in the dark, so far from the castle.

Half of him expected Derek to peer out from the broom cupboard, or the bathroom on his left, and when he didn’t, Stiles opened the doors himself, peering inside to find nothing but a pile of broomsticks and beaters bats stacked haphazardly against the wall. He pulled Derek’s note out of the pocket of his robes and checked it over. He hadn’t read it wrong. Maybe Derek was already outside.

Deciding to leave his bag where it was, Stiles looked around once more before heading to the Quidditch pitch.

Back outside, Stiles had to blink to allow his eyes to focus in the darkness. The door swung shut behind him with a click, so that even the small amount of light from the changing room reduced to nothing.

A second passed. Then another.

Then, the world exploded around him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles saw a flash of red and dived forward just in time to dodge the spell, which ricocheted off of the changing room wall and up into the sky.

Spitting grass from his mouth, Stiles scrambled onto his back just in time to see dark figures walking towards him, wands outstretched. Reacting on instinct, Stiles rolled over just in time to miss another spell that flew past his ear. Aiming roughly at the shapes moving towards him, he sent a spell at the nearest figure, which flew backwards with a yelp. He sent a second at another, but he missed as he flinched backwards to avoid another stunning spell.

Not caring about the direction, Stiles scrambled to his feet and started running as fast as he could towards the other side of the pitch, the cold air biting at his lungs, which were burning from the strain.

He had made it almost half way across the pitch before a hex hit his right leg, sending him crashing to the ground. Winded, his heart hammering wildly, Stiles tried to scramble back onto his feet, but was stopped by a foot that pressed down hard between his shoulder blades, pinning him to the floor. He cried out as his face hit the grass with a dull thud.

‘What- are you- doing?’ Stiles heaved, trying to catch his breath. Head swimming, he felt himself being dragged upwards and pushed onto his knees. He could feel his magic starting to pour into his fingertips. He needed his wand, needed to channel his magic through something. Anything to stop the wildfire burning through him.

‘He can do magic without a wand, remember,’ one of the figures said above him. ’Someone get his hands.’

A stunning spell hit Stiles directly in the back. He toppled forwards, hitting the grass with a dull thud.

‘Jesus, Theo, I said get his hands, not kill him,’ said a voice above Stiles. A wand tip illuminated the space around them and Stiles closed his eyes against it, blinking back the bright spots in his vision.

‘Listen,’ Stiles heaved, teeth chattering, as he was pulled upright again. ‘Whatever this is about, I can fix it.’

Someone else, someone Stiles recognised, laughed.

‘Isaac?’ Stiles said, squinting into the light.

Ignoring him, Isaac turned to one of the other students, who was just out of Stiles’ eye line.

‘Do you have it?’ he asked. He held out his hand and accepted something small and glass that glinted in the wand light. A solid block of ice seemed to slide directly into Stiles stomach.

‘Isaac, listen,’ he tried again, trying desperately to get any part of his body to move, to do anything. ‘We can talk about this.’

‘No,’ Isaac said, eyes flashing nastily. ‘We can’t.’ He held up the glinting thing and for the first time, Stiles got a good look at it. A glass phial was held in Isaac’s fist. An unmistakable, dark, tar-coloured liquid lapped at the sides of the glass bottle. Immediately, Stiles knew exactly what was going to happen to him.

He tried to spell the phial out of Isaac’s hand, but without the use of his hands, his magic was too chaotic. His spell hit one of the others and threw him backwards instead.

’Lahey, just give him the potion,’ someone said harshly, watching the Gryffindor hit the ground meters away. ‘Before he takes us all out.’

‘Hey, no, wait-‘ Stiles said, unable to hide his own terror. ‘Wait, wait- guys please-‘

His voice was cut off by a hand around his jaw, which forced his mouth open. Powerless to stop it, Stiles could only hang limply in his captor’s grip as the potion was poured into his mouth.

The effect should have been instantaneous. Stiles waited for the drop- the moment of complete, uncontrollable sleep- but it didn’t come. Instead, he was left in a kind of limbo, the world fading out slowly around him. He felt his eyelids go heavy as the feeling in his limbs started to fade away to nothing.

Just before he lost consciousness completely, he felt a pair of hands, grab him roughly. Then, head reeling, he finally fell asleep.

*

They found him the next morning tied to the top of one of the goal posts. It was during a first year flying lesson that Madame Hooch pointed up at the Quidditch posts only to find Stiles, freezing and semi-conscious fifty feet in the air.

The sleeping potion had done a good enough job at keeping him unconscious for a few hours, after which Stiles had slid in and out of waking states, unable to move, unable to think beyond scattered, jumbled thoughts.

People would tell him later that Madame Hooch screamed so loud you could hear it back at the castle. All Stiles could remember was her shaking him gently, her voice thin as she tried to get him to respond.

He’d thrown up then. He’d thrown up a few times, mostly before he was lifted to safety by Madamme Hooch and an enraged Professor McGonagall.

Stiles didn’t remember being taken to the hospital wing. He woke up there one afternoon days later, groggy and feeling very much like he’d spent a night tied to a goal post.

‘Professor McGonagall was furious,’ Lydia informed him when her and Scott were allowed to visit. ‘She had the entire school in the main hall. I’ve never seen her like it.’

‘She’s threatening expulsion,’ Scott said nervously. ‘But no one knows who did it.’ He glanced at Stiles. ‘Do you-?’

‘Yes,’ Stiles said thickly. ‘But I’m not saying anything.’

‘Stiles,’ Lydia said horrified. ‘They could have killed you.’

Stiles didn’t have an answer for that. Lydia was right, they could have killed him, but all he could remember, clear as day, from that night was the moment Isaac had made him drink that potion and the guilt he had felt knowing that it was the universe’s way of balancing reality.

‘Look,’ Stiles said, his voice cracking with lack of use. ‘If this were entirely unprovoked, I would-‘

‘Dude,’ Scott cut him off. ‘Tying someone to a goal post and forcing a potion down their throat is a bit more serious than a couple of poxy jinxes.’

Lydia’s eyes flashed dangerously. ’Try a lot more serious.’ She took a deep breath. It shook as she let it go. ‘Stiles, you didn’t see yourself when they brought you in. I was in the Great Hall at the time. You looked- I thought you were-‘

‘What Lydia’s saying,’ Scott took over, putting a comforting hand over hers, ‘is that this isn’t just some prank. We overheard Madamme Pomfrey. The potion they gave you was utter garbage. You’re lucky they didn’t poison you.’

‘And how is that different to what I did to Derek?’

Stiles hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but as soon as it was out in the open, the words hung heavily between them. Stiles wished he could take them back.

‘Stiles,’ Lydia said. She sounded so gentle, it made him flinch. ‘That was an accident. You didn’t mean for all this to happen.’

Stiles was saved from having to reply by the doors of the hospital wing opening, followed by Professor Slughorn, who searched wildly around for the only occupied bed.

‘Stiles,’ he said when he saw him, his chest visibly deflating. ‘You’re awake. Thank goodness.’ He noticed Lydia and Scott sitting there beside him and smiled. ‘You have some good friends there, Mr Stilinski. I only just heard that you were awake myself.’

As if on queue, Scott jumped up out of his seat. ‘We’ll let you talk, Professor.’ He shot a meaningful look at Stiles, who narrowed his eyes in return. ‘I’m sure you have lots to talk about.’

Lydia, also standing, smiled back at him. To anyone who knew Lydia, it was not an expression that was meant to comfort. Her eyes were wild and intense behind her wave of hair. ‘We’ll be back later. See you in class, Professor.’

The pair of them left and Stiles watched them all the way to the double doors. When they swung closed, he all at once felt every bit of the pain that had somehow been masked by the presence of his friends. He tried to sit up a little more in the bed and regretted it instantly when his head swam nastily.

Slughorn was ready just in time. The moment Stiles felt the nausea hit, a bucket was conjured into his hands, just in time for him to vomit unceremoniously into it.

‘Oh dear. Unfortunately, that might happen for a few more days,’ Slughorn said, vanishing the contents of the bucket. He took it from Stiles’ hands, which were shaking, and placed it onto Lydia’s vacant stool. ‘I’m afraid whatever you were given was not good quality.’ A moment of tense silence passed between them before Slughorn continued, softly so that they wouldn’t be overheard. ‘Stiles, I know Slytherin house is founded on pride, so I won’t ask you who did it. I’m trusting that you’ll tell me when you’re ready, but,’ he said in a whisper, ‘if you have any idea what you were given, it would help Madamme Pomfrey immensely.’ He straightened up and glanced at the old, wooden door hiding her office from view. ‘We are assuming that it was some kind of sleeping potion…’

‘It was,’ Stiles said, wanting more than anything for Slughorn to stop looking at him like he was made of glass. He bit the inside of his cheek and looked down at his hands. He only looked up again when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

’I am so sorry this happened to you. As your head of house, I can’t express.’ Slughorn took a deep breath. ‘We will find who did this to you.’

‘You don’t need to say anything, Professor,’ Stiles said, offering a weak smile. ‘I think I had it coming.’

Slughorn opened his mouth, then closed it quickly. His expression, while hard to read, was one that made Stiles want to sink back down under the duvet.

‘Stiles, listen to me,’ he said, his voice too even to be genuine. ‘You are talented. One of the most talented students I’ve seen pass through Hogwarts. People are always going to be jealous of you, but-‘ he held up a finger when Stiles tried to argue, ‘that does not give anyone the right to do what they did to you. Do you understand me?’

Stiles didn’t know what to say to that, so instead he nodded and mumbled, ‘Yes, sir.’

Another heavy silence stalled around them. Stiles could feel Slughorn looking at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. It was like a dam had been built somewhere in his throat and if it broke, everything would come tumbling out.

‘You know, Stiles,’ Slughorn said after a while. ‘If you have something you need to tell me, it’s my job to listen.’

Stiles bit down hard on his lip, a confession on the tip of his tongue. He was so tired, so fed up of trying to fix his own mess. For the first time since he’d joined Hogwarts, Stiles wanted help- help with Derek, with Isaac and the Ravenclaws and everyone else who’d ever hurt him.

He just wanted to go back to how things were before Derek had taken the love potion. It had all been so uncomplicated, so normal.

It was all right there, ready to be said, but the dam had dried up the words before they could be spoken and so, swallowing past the lump in his throat, he said, ‘I know, sir.’

*

He was released from the hospital wing two days later, still weak and a little wobbly, but not throwing up every other hour, which was a definite bonus. Stiles had practically begged to leave. He hated hospitals and the cold, white sheets, and vacant beds had started to feel like they were creeping in on him.

That morning, when he walked into The Great Hall for breakfast, it was as if someone had cast a silencing spell over all the students. He couldn’t count the number of people who stopped to look in his direction, hundreds of heads turned to look at the boy they’d all been talking about.

Stiles managed to duck his way to the Slytherin table just long enough to grab an apple and leave again, trying desperately to ignore the whispers sweeping around the hall.

As it turned out, the whispers were impossible to avoid. They followed him through the corridors between classes, in the library, in lesson times. It was so bad during charms that Professor Flitwick threatened two weeks detention to the next person who mentioned what had happened. He’d even given Stiles a pass on homework for the rest of the week, a kindness mirrored by every Professor that taught him.

Luckily, he had managed to avoid Derek all day. He hadn’t shown up in Care of Magical Creatures that morning and Stiles didn’t have any other lessons with the Gryffindors that day.

It was later in the evening, when Stiles was helping Professor Flitwick charm the house tapestries above the glittering house point hourglasses, that he appeared. Stiles had seen him coming a mile off, but when Derek materialised beside him, panting from his walk up to the castle, Stiles ignored him, instead concentrating on charming the number three hundred and fifty under the Hufflepuff Badger.

‘I need to talk to you,’ Derek panted when he finally reached him.

Stiles kept his eyes fixed upwards. ‘I’m not supposed to be seen with you,’ he said, hating the way his voice cracked on the word ‘you’.

‘Stiles, please.’ Derek pulled him round so that Stiles had no choice but to look at him. He looked wrecked. His usually pristine robes were a mess- his tie half done, his shirt hanging from under his jumper. His eyes were dark and heavy with lack of sleep. ‘Look, I wanted to say… I had no idea… I.. God, I don’t even know what to say-‘

‘Derek, stop.’ Stiles glanced around at the other students in the entrance hall, most of whom were watching them on their way into dinner. ‘You don’t have to say anything. I’m fine.’

‘But-‘

‘I think you should go.’ Stiles hated the hurt that flashed through Derek’s eyes. Desperate for something to feel normal between them, Stiles pointed his wand at Derek’s tie, which straightened itself into a neat knot.

Derek reached up and touched the place where the magic had been moments before. ‘You’re using your wand.’

Stiles looked down at the wand in his hand and tucked it up his sleeve.

‘Please go,’ he said.

‘Stiles..’

Across the hall, someone called Derek’s name. Stiles turned back to the tapestries that Professor Flitwick was fussing over and blinked back the wetness from his eyes.

‘Please, Derek. Go.’

Derek stood staring at him. Ten seconds, twenty.

A second voice called him from the double doors. This time, Derek didn’t ignore them.

*

Almost a week after Stiles had been found on the Quidditch pitch, Professor McGonagall sent an owl during his astronomy lesson, summoning him to her office. Avoiding all the eyes eager for him to give something away, he gave Lydia a reassuring smile and headed down the five flights of stairs to McGonagall’s office.

When he arrived, he knocked and waited for a voice to call, ‘Come in,’ before going in.

The door swung inwards to reveal an office already packed with people. Stiles froze. A handful of students- some from Gryffindor, some from Ravenclaw- stood silently, shoulder to shoulder beside Professor McGonagall’s desk. Isaac was right at the front of the crowd. He looked ghostly white.

‘Come in, Stiles,’ she said briskly. ‘Take a seat.’ Her voice was thin, the feigned lightness betrayed by the thunderous look in her eyes.

Stiles did as he was told, pointedly avoiding the eyes of the other students, who he suspected weren’t returning the favour.

‘Thank you for joining us, Stiles. I wanted you to know that you will finally have some justice for the horrific ordeal you went through last week.’

Stiles didn’t say anything. He kept his eyes fixed on a spot on the desk in front of him.

‘You will be pleased to know,’ Professor McGonagall continued without preamble, ‘that we have caught the culprits.’ She levelled a look at the group, who shrank back at her stare.

Stiles’ mouth suddenly went very dry. ‘I don’t remember who did it, Professor.’

‘Well luckily for you,’ McGonagall said, lowering her spectacles around her neck. ‘Someone else does remember.’

Staring straight forward, Stiles tried his best to remember how to breathe normally. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Isaac wipe something off of his cheek with the sleeve of his robes.

‘Arrogant as they were to discuss their depravity in the common room, of all places, someone overheard them and came to see me straight away. It is nice to know that there is some decency left in my own house.’ She shot a look so venomous at the Gryffindors beside her that Stiles was surprised they didn’t burst into flames standing right where they were. When she turned back to Stiles, she was softer. ‘I have to ask you, Stiles,’ she said, ‘is there anything you would like to tell me before I decide how to punish these boys?’

A moment passed where Stiles imagined himself telling the truth. He could do it- it was right there on the tip of his tongue, ready to be said. None of the people standing in front of him had ever shown him any kindness. It was true that Stiles hadn’t shown any in return, but wasn’t that kind of the point. People hated Slytherins. Slytherins retaliated accordingly. But something about the way they were all staring at him, desperate and knowing, like they expected him to tell the truth, made Stiles swallow back what he knew.

‘Like I said, Professor,’ he murmured, shaking his head, ‘I can’t remember anything.’

For a moment, Stiles thought McGonagall was going to argue with him. Then, she turned to the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and said, ‘You six, back to your dormitories. Alongside your ban from Quidditch for the foreseeable future, you will also be required to report to a teacher at break and lunch times. You are expected back at your dormitories by six in the evening. Any indication that you are not following these rules, and I will expel you faster than you can say ‘chocolate frog.’ Do you understand me?’

They nodded, ashen faced, and filed out of the office without a word.

Stiles stared, fixedly, at a point on the wall until McGonagall sat back down at her desk. He had the impression that she wasn’t finished with him yet.

Picking up her quill from the desk and propping it up in the ink pot beside her, she rested her chin on her interlocked fingers.

‘Most students have more sense than to lie to me, Mr Stilinski. You should know that better than anyone.’

Stiles’ stomach did a somersault. ‘Professor?’

‘You are very gifted in a lot of ways,’ she said, a weary, heavy quality bleeding into her tone, ‘but lying is not one of your strengths.’

‘I don’t-‘

‘You have very good friends,’ she interrupted. ‘Mr McCall and Miss Martin came to see me last night. They were worried about you.’

A heavy silence settled around them.

‘Oh,’ was all Stiles could come up with.

Professor McGonagall hummed. ‘I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, Stiles. I do.’ She smiled at him and it was so foreign to Stiles that he felt like he’d been plunged, headfirst into a universe where things like that could happen. ‘However, I think you should know that despite your friend's good intentions, they were not the first person to tell me what had happened that night on the Quidditch pitch.’

When Stiles looked at her quizzically, she continued.

‘Mr Hale came to see me the day you left the hospital wing. He overheard a conversation in the changing rooms and came to see me immediately.’

Moments passed between them where nothing was said. Professor McGonagall was an extraordinarily hard woman to read, and so it came as a genuine shock when real, unmistakable emotion passed over her features.

‘As I have already said, I understand why you don’t want to name any names, but I am going to have to punish them at some point, you do realise that, don’t you?’

Stiles nodded, for once, speechless.

‘You have heard the punishment I have already given them. I will, of course, inform you when I have thought of something more appropriate,’ she continued. Then, just as Slughorn had done, she said, ‘Stiles, is there anything you’d like to talk to me about?’

Stiles blinked. ‘Why does everyone keep asking me that?’

A sensation took over Stiles’ fingertips then, a strange humming that was slowly spreading into his palms. He closed his fist on the magic pooling there and shook his head.

‘I’m fine, Professor. Honestly.’

Stiles knew she didn’t believe him. He wouldn’t believe him, either. His hands were trembling in his lap, his wand very clearly stowed away in his pocket. His arms were still bruised from the ropes that held him up on the goalpost. This was the least himself he’d ever been, but it had kept him safe since that night. The attention that used to be an annoyance had become something bigger and worse somehow; a dragon that he had to try and slay with a foam sword.

Desperate to lessen the tension between them, Stiles pulled his wand from his pocket and waved it in a complicated pattern. In the empty vase behind McGonagall’s desk, a bouquet of flowers appeared, sprouting blooming limbs from the dried petals that had been floating in the murky water at the bottom of the glass.

‘I never thanked you for helping that day,’ he said quietly, pocketing his wand. ‘You didn’t have to. I’m not even in your house.’

McGonagall shook her head. ‘Stiles, it is my job to help every student that passes through Hogwarts. House has nothing to do with it. You are just as important to me as any Gryffindor.’

She took a tin off of the top of her filing cabinet that was quietly organising it and shook the condense under Stiles’ nose.

’Now, your Professor must be wondering where on earth you are.’ She shook the tin again. ‘Take a biscuit for the journey.’

‘Th-thank you,’ Stiles said, taking a ginger newt and standing up. He walked to the door and shouldered his bag.

He waited until the door was shut behind him before he pocketed the biscuit and made his way back to astronomy.

*

Derek didn’t sit next to Stiles in their next potions lessons. He sat at the back next to Allison, who looked just as confused as the rest of the class, but carried on as normal regardless.

Stiles, who had unconsciously left the space beside him clear ever since Derek had stopped sitting there, finally dragged his bag up to sit in Derek’s place. He wouldn’t miss Derek, he was adamant.

At least I won’t get distracted, Stiles thought, making a start on his pepper up potion after the fifth lesson sat alone. I might actually get some work done without-

Bang!

Stiles spun around just in time to see thick, black smoke billowing out of a cauldron at the back of the room. Allison, who had toppled back off of her stool in surprise, shrieked, ‘Seriously?’

Derek started muttering apologies to anyone who would hear, waving his wand wildly to try and control some of the smoke, but all he managed to do was turn it a slightly lighter shade of grey.

Stiles, whose own wand was tucked inside his sleeve, took it out and waved it in a smooth arc that cleared the smoke instantly.

Derek looked up and caught his eye. They hadn’t looked at each other in weeks.

Stiles ignored the heaviness in his chest and turned back to his cauldron, afraid that if he kept looking, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

He still couldn’t believe that Derek had gone to McGonagall. He couldn’t believe everything had gone so far. His mind wandered to the antidote, still maturing in the bathroom, and silently willed it to go faster.

Professor Slughorn huffed out a long, despairing sigh.

‘Mr Hale, I had hoped that you’d learn something from sitting next to Mr Stilinski.’

He turned to Stiles and an idea seemed to come to him.

Stiles, who knew exactly what was about to happen, tried to silently communicate ‘no’ in as many ways as possible, when Slughorn threw his arm out in Stiles’ direction.

‘Stiles!’ he said as if only just seeing him sitting there. ‘Would you please help Mr Hale for me?’

With a feeling like the floor falling out from under him, Stiles gritted his teeth and said, ‘Sir, couldn’t someone else-?’

‘Thank you, Stiles,’ Slughorn said over him in a strained sort of voice. ‘Mr Hale.’ He once again gestured at the empty chair next to Stiles, which Derek silently moved to, the entire class watching their next steps eagerly.

Silently cursing under his breath, Stiles pulled his bag heavily to the floor with a loud thunk, allowing Derek to slide into the empty seat.

‘I’m sorry,’ Derek whispered. ‘I won’t say anything-‘

‘It’s fine,’ Stiles bit back, all too forcefully. He took a breath, counted to five. ‘It’s fine.’

They both went back to brewing their potions, Derek starting his from scratch once he’d managed to get the charred remains of his old potion out of the bottom of his cauldron.

Stiles did his best to not let his eyes wander over to Derek’s side of the bench, but he was like the sun that Stiles couldn’t help looking into. Eventually, the inevitable happened.

‘Don’t even think about it.’ Stiles shot his hand out to stop Derek from adding what Stiles knew was way too many newt’s eyes.

‘Why not?’ came the indignant reply.

‘Because,’ Stiles said through firmly gritted teeth, ‘if you put that many newt’s eyes in, it’s going to create a stink bomb so bad, your grandchildren will have to walk around with air fresheners round their neck.’

‘Air freshener?’

Stiles bit down on his lip to stop himself from saying something cutting. Instead, he said, ‘It doesn’t matter. Just trust me, okay?’

Derek slowly lowered his hand.

‘Fine,’ he said, a hint of desperation cracking his voice. ‘What do I do?’

Stiles rolled his eyes. He pointed his wand at the chalk board. ‘Look. Read.’

He turned back to his own cauldron, where his potion was bubbling away happily. Distantly, he heard Derek’s name whispered behind him and turned his head enough to see a group of girls laughing.

Stiles watched Derek, sitting slumped, staring blankly at the instructions on the whiteboard, and felt heat rise under his collar.

Quietly, so no one else could hear, he said, ‘You only need four newt’s eyes.’

Derek’s movements were so slight, you might not have noticed had you been sat as close as Stiles was. The barest smile. His shoulders lost their tension.

‘Thanks,’ he breathed, dropping the newt’s eyes in.

At the end of the lesson, Stiles packed away quickly and had almost made it to the door before Slughorn called him back.

Fighting back the urge to roll his eyes, Stiles turned back to the teacher’s desk, which was covered in potion samples from the lesson. Stiles noticed his own next to Derek’s and watched as Slughorn picked up the latter.

‘This is one of the best potions Derek has ever made,’ he observed, holding the phial up to the light. ‘It’s almost as good as yours.’

Stiles rubbed at his arm and shrugged. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, Professor.’

Slughorn levelled him with a look.

‘I watched you, Stiles,’ he said. ‘I know your relationship with the Gryffindors is a little… strained.’ Stiles thought that was an understatement, but didn’t argue back despite himself. ‘But you’re good for Derek, Stiles, and correct me if I’m mistaken, but I think,’ Slughorn gave him a knowing smile, ‘that he might be good for you.’

Stiles felt his cheeks burn. ‘Sir?’

‘I would like you to consider being Derek’s tutor for a while, just until your final exams,’ Slughorn continued when Stiles looked mutinous. ‘He has career aspirations that I’m afraid he will have to put on hold until his grades can improve.’

The door opened behind them, saving Stiles from answering Slughorn. He was briefly relieved, until he saw who had opened it.

‘Sorry, Professor,’ Derek said, stepping quietly back into the room. ‘I forgot my books.’ He pointed at the desk, where a pile of spell books sat, too pristine to have ever been read.

Slughorn beamed, as if this was a grand plan that he’d devised.

‘Ahh, not at all, Derek,’ he said. ‘We were just talking about you actually.’

Derek’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Sir?’

‘I was just suggesting to Mr Stilinski that it might be a good idea for him to give you someone to one help with potions in the lead up to your exams,’ Slughorn said happily. 

Stiles dropped his bag, which landed with a dull thud on the stone floor. He stared at Slughorn in horror.

’Sir, no, I-‘

Derek made the short trip across the room to stand next to Stiles, books spilling over his arms.

‘Professor, Stiles shouldn’t have to,’ he said. ‘Not after, you know…’ 

Heat crept up Stiles neck. He looked up at the ceiling.

‘I do understand the circumstances are difficult,’ Slughorn replied. ‘You two just work so well together, I thought…’ He scratched his head and looked around as if trying to find something. ‘Oh well, perhaps you two could make yourselves useful in another way.’ He pointed at the phials on his desk. ‘Could you two please organise those in my cupboard for me? I’m afraid I have an important meeting to go to and they’ll be left there all night otherwise.’

Slughorn left, leaving Stiles and Derek standing together, silent, neither one looking at each other.

‘You don’t have to-‘

‘I can-‘ 

Stiles sighed. ‘You don’t have to do this. I can do it on my own.’ He pulled out his wand and started to lift the phials carefully, one by one, into their space in the cupboard.

Derek didn’t move, despite Stiles’ attempts to ignore him. He stood and watched for a moment, then started scooping up the remaining phials by hand.

‘You’re using your wand,’ he said, still not looking at Stiles. The phials tinkled as they made contact with their space in the shelf. Derek ducked as Stiles sent one soaring over his head and into the space beside the one he had just organised.

Against his better judgement, Stiles replied, ‘Are you asking me a question? Because if you are, I’d rather you just asked it.’

Derek paused, thinking, then said, ‘Why are you using your wand?’

‘Because that’s how magic works.’

‘Not for you.’

Stiles stopped. For the first time since Slughorn had left, he allowed himself to look up at Derek. His eyes had dark circles under them, like pools mirroring nights of lost sleep.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Stiles asked.

Derek shrugged, but that seemed a whole other question in itself. ‘You never use your wand. I didn’t even know you had a wand until recently. Now you’re… different. You don’t seem so…’

‘Annoying? Egotistical? Selfish?’ Stiles threw the words into the air, daring Derek to use any of them.

To his surprise, Derek shook his head. ‘Magic,’ he replied. ‘You used to be so full of it.’

A lump had made its way into Stiles throat, so big it made his eyes water. Blinking the wetness away, he sniffed and said,

‘Well, if we’re asking questions. Why did you tell McGonagall about Lahey and the others? Aren’t they your friends?’

Genuine surprise bled into Derek’s expression at that, so much so that he almost missed the shelf where he was placing the phial. He caught it at the last second and deposited it safely in its spot.

‘She told you about that?’

Stiles nodded. ‘She did.’

Resigned to the truth, Derek put the last remaining phial on the shelf and crossed his arms. The shelf rattled with the force, the glass bouncing dangerously against the wood.

‘What was I supposed to have done? Let them get away with it?’

‘I didn’t expect you to tell McGonagall,’ Stiles admitted. ‘Especially not after all the grief I’d caused Lahey.’

Derek snorted. ‘Grief? Stiles, they could have killed you.’

‘But they’re your team mates.’

Derek let out a growl, a guttural, frustrated sound that shook in Stiles’ chest. All at once, the nervous, timid Derek had vanished, replaced by an angry, fiery version of himself that Stiles hadn’t seen before.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said, so intense Stiles couldn’t look away. ‘When are you going to get it through your head that I care about you?’

Stiles swallowed. No response came to him. Derek caring about him was not something he could allow himself to think about. It wasn’t something he could even bring himself to contemplate. If he did, it might allow for the possibility of Stiles feeling the same- something that couldn’t, wouldn’t happen.

Finished with their task, Derek scrubbed a hand over his face, picked up his bag and shouldered it.

‘Look,’ he said, shoulders slumping just as they’d done in the lesson. ‘I know what you went through was awful. I don’t expect you to be happy that I told McGonagall. I don’t even expect you to like me.’ He ran another hand over his face. It messed up his hair at the front, so that it hung over his eyes. ‘I just want you to trust me when I tell you that I care that you were hurt, and… I was thinking, if you want to and it’s not too stressful for you…’ He flushed a deep shade of red that started at the base of his neck and travelled up to his cheeks, where it settled just under his eyes. ‘I was wondering, well hoping, really- would you like to come to my Quidditch match this weekend?’

Stiles stared at him. His brain had started to piece everything that had just been said together, but nothing fit.

Numbly, he said, ‘You want me to… come to your Quidditch match?’

Derek’s flush got, if anything, even darker. ‘I understand if you can’t or you don’t want to because of… you know,’ he said. ‘But the others won’t be on the team, and I’ve found some really good players, and well- we’re playing Ravenclaw. I thought you might like to see me beat them.’

Stiles considered that. He would like to see Ravenclaw beaten. That was overshadowed, though, by a softer, more private thought that crept in. A thought shrouded in late evening starlight and the wind rushing through his hair.

‘You’re very confident,’ Stiles said. ‘What if you lose?’

Derek smiled. ‘I wouldn’t if you were watching me.’

‘You know I’m not allowed to help you win, right? There isn’t a potion for that.’

‘I think I’ll be okay.’

Stiles gulped. ‘You make a very tempting offer.’ Despite every muscle in his body tugging him towards, he took a step away. ‘I’ll think about it.’ He picked up his bag and pretended to miss the glint in Derek’s eye. He shut the cupboard door. ‘I’ll see you in care of magical creatures,’ he said. \

*

‘I am so unbelievably cross with you.’ Lydia slammed the door of the bathroom behind her as she walked in, throwing her bag down onto the ground beside Stiles, who jumped out of the way of a rogue textbook that came flying out of it.

‘Jesus, Lyds, do you want the entire castle to know we’re here.’

‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me the antidote was finished,’ she replied. She dropped down to the floor opposite Stiles. ‘Do you know how much study time I’ve missed stirring this thing?’

‘I know.’ Stiles closed his eyes and tried to ignore the guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘Honestly, I know. I don’t know what happened. It just… slipped my mind.’ He opened his eyes and saw that Lydia’s annoyed expression had softened. ‘Where have you left Scott?’ 

‘Guard duty,’ Lydia said. She glanced into the potion. ‘He says if he gets a detention because of you, he’s going to kill you.’

‘Noted,’ Stiles replied. 

In the sliver of moonlight coming in through one of the many windows, the cauldron containing his antidote bubbled away happily. It was clear now, iridescent lights dancing across the top.

Stiles picked up the spoon and stirred it. It looked perfect.

‘I can give him this at the weekend,’ he said, tapping the spoon on the rim. ‘He, err… kind of invited me to the quidditch match.’

Lydia almost choked. ‘He’s what?’

‘He invited me to the match,’ Stiles repeated. He took a flask from his bag and scooped up some of the potion. He shook it and watched the colours burst across the surface. ‘It won’t mean anything when I give him this,’ he said, slipping it into his bag. ‘Once he’s taken this, he won’t be in love with me anymore. Things will be back to normal.’ He stared blankly at the potion, letting the realisation wash over him. This was it. This was what he wanted.

Lydia tucked her knees up to her chin. ‘That’s a good thing, right?’

For the first time since Stiles had met Lydia, he didn’t know how to reply.

*

Saturday morning, Stiles woke early and headed to the Great Hall, the antidote securely stored in the pocket of his robes. He found Derek, alone at the Gryffindor table, eating jam toast and doing some strange hand movements, which Stiles assumed were quidditch moves.

Swallowing back the growing fear of being seen in such a public place with the star Quidditch player, Stiles crossed the hall quickly and tapped Derek on the shoulder.

‘Come with me,’ he said quietly. ‘Please,’ he added when Derek looked confused. ‘I have something for you.’

‘Alright.’ Derek shrugged and abandoned his toast leisurely, unaware of the staring eyes that were boring into Stiles as he stood waiting, shuffling from foot to foot, until Derek eventually stood and followed Stiles to an empty classroom.

Stiles shut the door quickly. The antidote felt heavy in his pocket. He took it out and held it out to Derek.

‘What is it?’ Derek asked, taking it and giving it a shake. The iridescent lights danced across the top, sending Stiles’ inside squirming.

‘It’s for the match,’ Stiles replied. ‘To keep you focused.’

Derek squinted at it. ‘Looks like your calming potion from the start of the year.’

Stiles swallowed down a curse word and laughed nervously.

‘That? Oh. No. Completely different. This is like an… energy drink. A classy Gatorade if you will.’

‘I’m starting to realise that only half the things you say to me make any sense,’ Derek laughed. Then, with a slight edge, ‘It’s not cheating is it?’

Stiles rolled his eyes. ‘I told you I couldn’t help you with that.’

‘I was just checking.’ Derek uncorked the potion. ‘Are you, err… going to watch the match?’

‘Do you really think I’d take the time to make you this if I wasn’t at least going to reap the benefits. Derek Hale on caffeine. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.’ Stiles nodded encouragingly at the phial in Derek’s hand. ‘I promise. It’s just going to give you energy. I used to take basically the same thing before baseball back home.’

‘Baseball,’ Derek ran the word over his tongue. ‘I know that one! Cora has a muggle friend who plays. It’s with the stick, right?’

Stiles nodded. His eyes never left the phial in Derek’s hand. 

‘Well, thanks,’ Derek said. ‘Anything to wake me up. To tell you the truth, I haven’t really been sleeping.’ He eyed the potion again, then tipped it into his mouth and swallowed it.

Stiles stared at him. It would take a while, maybe an hour or so for the effects to fully wear off, but that didn’t stop the horrible twisting feeling in Stiles’ gut.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

Derek shrugged. He rolled his tongue around his mouth, chasing the taste. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘It tastes just like cinnamon. How did you do that?

Stiles held his palms up. ‘The house elves in the kitchen have sworn me to secrecy.’ Then, looking for an excuse to escape, he said, ‘Well, I should let you get back to your breakfast. Good luck at the match. I’ll see you there.’

Derek caught the corner of his sleeve before he could walk away. He pulled Stiles back into the room.

‘Thank you, Stiles,’ he said. ‘Really, I appreciate you coming today. I know it might be weird or-‘

‘It’s fine,’ Stiles replied, Derek’s hand on his arm burning. ‘You’re going to be great.’

For the first time that morning, Derek looked pale.

‘To tell you the truth, this is probably the most nervous I’ve ever been for a Quidditch match.’

Stiles looked towards the open door, then closed it softly.

‘Do you wanna… talk about it?’ he asked. It sounded strange coming out of his own mouth, words he’d never really had to say to anyone before. Not for a long time, anyway.

Derek looked up, surprised. He cleared his throat.

‘I think it’s just…’ he started, struggling for words. ‘I’ve always had Issac. Playing without him… I know he deserves it, but, you know. It’s going to be different without him there.’

Instinct told Stiles to reach out and touch his arm, but he stayed where he was, hesitating between possibilities. He thought about how he’d feel if he didn’t have Scott with him, or Lydia. It suddenly occurred to him just how much of a big deal it was that Derek had told their secret to McGonagall.

‘Derek,’ he started, fingers trembling slightly at his side. ‘I can’t tell you that it’s going to be okay. It won’t. It’s going to suck. But because of you, I don’t have to walk through the corridors feeling like the ceiling might fall down on top of me. I get to feel safe going to a Quidditch match because I know that those guys won’t be there to make it impossible.’ He shuffled on the balls of his feet, not quite sure where he was going, but feeling right in it regardless. ‘You did something really brave. So, even though they won’t be there, you’ve got someone new cheering you on.’ He swallowed hard. ‘You just have to look for them.’

Derek smiled at him, so softly, Stiles wished he could frame the memory and keep it in his pocket forever. Knowing that soon, he would never look at him like that again, Stiles forced himself to look away.

‘Thank you, Stiles,’ Derek said. ‘I really appreciate it.’

‘Don’t thank me,’ Stiles said. He blew out a breath and tried to lighten the heavy feeling hanging around him. ‘Just win, okay? I can’t be seen cheering on Gryffindor for nothing.’

Derek laughed. ‘I’ll try.’

*

Stiles found Scott in the entrance hall fifteen minutes later. He was wearing a knowing look that made Stiles mentally run through all the bad choices he’d made in his recent history.

‘What?’ he asked, joining Scott in the throng of students making their way down to the Quidditch pitch.

Scott hummed. ‘That was an awfully long time to give someone a potion,’ he said quietly.

‘Well, I didn’t just ram it down his throat,’ Stiles hissed, checking that the people around them couldn’t hear. ‘There’s a fine art to drugging people, Scott.’

Scott snorted. ‘Add that to the list of concerning things you’ve ever said to me.’

‘How long’s the list?’

‘Longer than you’d realise.’

Stiles laughed. He couldn’t help himself. The sun was shining and the crushing feeling he’d felt in the classroom with Derek was dissipating with the early spring breeze.

‘Is it done then?’ Scott asked as they trudged their way across the grounds.

‘It’s done.’

Scott clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I’m proud of you, dude.’ His eyes wandered to the Quidditch pitch and up the goal post towering above them. ‘Hey, are you sure you’re ready for this?’

Nodding despite himself, Stiles too, found himself staring fixedly in the same direction. It hadn’t really felt real until then, a ghost of a fear that hadn’t quite reached him yet. He hadn’t considered that to watch Quidditch, he would have to walk the same steps he took that night, that he would be face to face with what had happened to him. He had been so distracted by Derek and the antidote, he hadn’t given himself a moment to consider how it might feel to go back.

‘You’re with me, remember?’ Scott added, reassuringly. ‘An honorary Hufflepuff.’ He laughed. ‘Who am I kidding, you’ve always been an honorary Hufflepuff.’ He threw his arm around Stiles fully this time and dragged him in for a one armed hug. ‘All you have to do is watch. I’m sure they’ll be plenty for you to see.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Stiles asked before they were swept along with the gathering crowd, Scott’s answer stolen by the noise of the students around them.

Once they’d reached the stands, Stiles searched the pitch for the players. A handful of students walked onto the grass, indistinguishable from where Stiles was sitting. Two of the players shook hands, then a shrill whistle blew and the game began.

As soon as the players were in the air, it was almost impossible to not find Derek, ducking and weaving through the other players like breathing, like it was more natural than walking.

Stiles remembered the nights he spent flying with Derek. Out here, with the wind in his hair, it was like going back to those nights, when everything seemed gloriously uncomplicated.

Chasers ducked and veered, figures on broomsticks darting across the sky, and yet Stiles couldn’t stop looking at Derek. Once or twice, he thought that Derek had seen him in the crowd, but he showed no indication, so invested in the game that Stiles would have been surprised if he was thinking about anything else.

‘He’s picked a good team,’ Scott shouted over the cheers. ‘That chaser, is that his sister?’

Stiles tore his eyes away from Derek to look where Scott was pointing. Cora was almost as good as Derek on a broomstick, if not more daring. In the time it had taken Stiles to find her, she had already scored twice.

‘Yeah,’ Stiles replied. ‘She’s really good. Who are the others?’

Scott started pointing out the new team, mainly people Stiles had never met. They played like they’d been a team for years. Stiles thought that if this was how quidditch was supposed to be played, he might not just come to watch Scott.

No sooner had he thought it, however, an audible ‘ohhh’ swept across the stands.

Stiles searched the air and saw one of the Gryffindors frantically trying to gain control of her broomstick, which had been hit with a bludger. The front of her broom was splintering away and spinning out of control.

Out of nowhere, Derek soared to meet her. He reached out and pulled her onto his own broomstick as hers plummeted to the ground.

Stiles saw her shout something at Derek, who nodded back and took off around the other side of the pitch. As they passed another player, the girl jumped off of Derek’s broom and onto a fellow chaser’s, where she proceeded to score another ten points for Gryffindor.

Then, all at once, Derek broke into a dive, one so fast, a lot of people in the stands missed it until Derek was plummeting, following something so fast he was almost a blur.

‘He’s mad,’ Scott said, watching wide eyed.

Hand outstretched, Derek kept his speed, getting closer to the ground.

Stiles’ heart was hammering in his ears.

Derek’s hand closed into a fist.

‘No!’

Stiles threw every ounce of magic he had out into the open.

Derek’s broom hit the ground and lodged firmly in the grass. Derek, who should have followed, seemed to slow down in mid air.

Sweat broke over Stiles’ brow as he felt the full force of Derek’s deceleration in his own bones, dragging him backwards. Then, like a slingshot, he released it and Derek tumbled, from three feet off of the ground, across the grass.

Stiles himself shot backwards into his seat, breath in heaving bursts, the entire stadium silent, watching either Derek or the Hufflepuff stands.

Then, simultaneously, the crowd broke into cheers as Derek’s hand opened to reveal the snitch.

All of the air in Stiles’ body escaped at once. He flung himself out of his seat and, pulling Scott behind him, ran out of the stands and down the winding stairs to the pitch.

Cheers ringing in his ears, Stiles sprinted over to Derek, who was lying still on the grass, a handful of Gryffindors and Madamme Hooch fussing over him.

‘Is he okay?’ Stiles panted, dropping to his knees. ‘I didn’t… I couldn’t stop him.’

Scott put a hand on his shoulder, whether to pull him back or calm him down, Stiles didn’t know.

‘You did very well, Mr Stilinski,’ Madamme Hooch said. ‘Your spell knocked mine clean out of the air.’

‘Can that even happen?’ One of the Gryffindors asked.

‘Apparently,’ she replied. Then, she turned back to Derek. ‘Mr Hale, can you look at me?’

A simple enough instruction, except that instead of staring at Madamme Hooch, he was staring fixedly at Stiles.

‘You have a nice face,’ he said softly. He reached a limp hand up to touch Stiles’ face, but all he managed was a weak wave.

Stiles recoiled. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘Concussion, I imagine,’ Madamme Hooch replied as the Gryffindor girls giggled behind their hands. ‘Can you help me take him to the hospital wing, Mr Stilinski?’

He nodded numbly, vehemently avoiding Scott’s eye as he helped levitate Derek onto a stretcher, which made its own way back across the pitch to the castle.

The journey to the hospital wing could have taken hours for all Stiles noticed. Muscle memory alone led him back up the marble stairs and through the corridors to the double doors that opened for them as they arrived.

Stiles had checked his pockets a hundred times. Derek had definitely taken the antidote. He’d watched him take it. So why hadn’t it worked?

He’d considered that it hadn’t fully kicked in yet. He had also taken into account that Derek had just been thrown across a Quidditch pitch from a considerable height. People said weird things all the time after a head injury. This was no different. Except…

‘You can go, Mr Stilinski,’ Madamme Pomfrey said as Derek was lifted onto the crisp, white linen on the bunk furthest from the door. ‘I can take it from here.’

Stiles turned to leave, but stopped when he felt a tug on his robes. Derek was holding onto his sleeve with as much force as he could muster, his eyes sliding in and out of focus as he struggled to stay awake.

’Stay,’ he said thickly. ‘Please.’

Helpless, Stiles looked up at Madamme Pomfrey, who shook her head and huffed out an irritated breath.

‘Fine, you may stay,’ she said. ‘You can help me keep him awake while I fetch the correct potion from Professor Slughorn.’

She bustled off into the corridor to wait for Slughorn, leaving the pair of them, Derek still holding Stiles’ sleeve, Stiles halfway between leaving and staying. Eventually, Stiles gave in and sat down.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

Derek hummed under his breath. ‘Hurt,’ he said honestly. ‘Your potion was great. So focused.’

‘You were nearly so dead a moment ago.’ The bitterness in Stiles’ voice was drowned out by concern, taking all the edge away from it. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘Dunno,’ Derek shrugged. ‘I saw the snitch.’

‘You’re such an idiot.’

‘An idiot you saved,’ Derek said, closing his eyes and relaxing into the pillows.

Stiles snapped his fingers in front of his face, and he jerked awake.

‘I didn’t fancy scraping you off of the pitch to be honest,’ Stiles said, ignoring the heat in his cheeks. ‘How do you know it was me anyway?’

Derek smiled goofily. ‘No one else would have saved me.’

‘That’s so unbelievably untrue.’ Stiles shook his head. ‘I’m pretty sure half the girls in the school would hold a memorial for your face if anything happened to it.’

‘Ugh.’ Derek pulled a face that both proved and disproved Stiles’ original point. Then, as if carrying on a completely different conversation, he said, ‘Thank you for saving me. I’m an idiot, you’re right.’

Before Stiles could reply, Madamme Pomfrey arrived, potion in hand with Madame Hooch, explaining what had happened. Taking the opportunity to escape, Stiles stood up to give them room to tend to Derek, and then, without a word, he turned and slipped quietly out of the double doors.

*

Derek only spent two nights in the hospital wing. Once the potion had kicked in, it hadn’t taken long for him to be able to stand up without the room spinning, and on the third morning, Madamme Pomfrey gave him the all clear to go back to his normal lessons.

Stiles, who had been trying to not think about Derek at all, walked into potions early as normal and set up on his usual bench. The antidote had had plenty of time to kick in by now, and Stiles had made sure to keep a wide birth of the hospital wing, so there was absolutely no way that Stiles would have to worry about Derek being in love with him.

Taking the last book from his bag, Stiles made to throw it down on the chair next to him, but changed his mind at the last moment. Instead, he kicked the bag under the desk and started organising his potion ingredients, rolling his packet of dried camomile leaves through his hands three times before throwing them haphazardly next to his bottle of dragon blood.

‘I thought you were supposed to keep a tidy desk,’ a voice came from above him.

Stiles looked up. Derek was standing over him, grinning from ear to ear, cheeks rosy from the walk through the grounds. He dropped his bag next to him and sat down, pulling out his ingredients and organising them carefully on the desk.

‘What…’ Stiles started stupidly. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting ready for class,’ he said, stacking his books into a neat pile. ‘You?’ 

‘You’re still sitting next me.’

Derek snorted. ‘Is that a crime?’

’No,’ Stiles answered quickly, pulling his own books out of his bag to stop himself from accidentally setting the bench on fire. His hands were shaking. ‘I just didn’t think you’d still want to.’

‘Well considering I blow everything up if I don’t sit next to you,’ Derek said, still grinning. ‘I figured it was safer to cut out the middle man.’

Stiles felt his jaw drop and then jammed his teeth together to hide the surprised expression he knew was all over his face. ‘Cool.’ He tried to say it in a light, breezy tone, but all that he achieved was a high, strangled sort of sound that he’d never made before in his entire life. 

He couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Derek should be normal again. Grumpy, rude, uncaring. This strange new Derek couldn’t be here to stay. That would ruin everything Stiles thought was right in the world. He could feel the delicate balance of reality start to tilt beneath him.

So caught up in his panic, Stiles went through the rest of the lesson in a haze. He was thinking so intently about his antidote that he only half-listened to Slughorn’s instructions for hair growth potions, resulting in Stiles making a potion so strong, the guinea pig they tested it on turned into some kind of guinea pig-yetti hybrid.

‘I say, Mr Stilinski,’ Slughorn chucked as he examined the guinea pig. ‘I am impressed. I dare say anyone who took this potion would be at the hairdressers in a hurry.’

Stiles dropped his head into his arms with a groan. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to will away the creeping, prickling feeling of embarrassment that was seeping into his fingertips.

Distantly, he heard Slughorn ask Derek to try his potion. Through the ringing in his ears he heard a gasp and looked up. Half expecting Derek’s guinea pig to have turned into a budgerigar or something, he was genuinely shocked when he looked down to see a marginally hairier, fluffed up normal guinea pig.

‘Mr Hale,’ Slughorn exclaimed, clapping his hands together. ‘Brilliant work. Ten points to Gryffindor.’

He moved away to test the rest of the class’ potions, leaving both Stiles and Derek to stare, dumbfounded at the guinea pig.

‘How did you-?’ Stiles began.

‘No idea,’ Derek replied.

Stiles craned his neck to look at the potion in Derek’s cauldron. It wasn’t bad. At all.  It was the right colour and everything. There were even small, pin-head sized bubbles popping at the surface.  He turned back to Derek, who was turning redder by the second.

‘I think, err… I mean, I just sort of watched you,’ he said, avoiding Stiles’ eye completely now. ‘I couldn’t follow you exactly though. You were going so fast.’

Stiles stood up, faltered and then sat down heavily in his seat. ‘Shit.’

Derek jumped back in surprise, a wave of worry washing over his face. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘Peachy,’ Stiles replied, dazed. This was wrong. All wrong. The earth was officially crumbling away under his feet. The entire lesson he’d been consumed with thinking, of making sense of things in his head. Now, there was no other conclusion. Stiles never thought he’d live in a world where Derek Hale could make a passable potion. That one constant had been keeping all this together for him and now it was vaporising before his eyes.

There was no other explanation.

The antidote hadn’t worked.

*

‘Dude, you have got to calm down,’ Scott hissed at him later that day, when Stiles accidentally charmed not just one whistle into a watch, but they entire classes’ whistles as well.

Grimacing apologetically and changing them all back with a wave of his hand, Stiles ducked his head and hissed, ‘I can’t help it. My potions have always worked.’

The whistle that Scott had been transfiguring dropped to the table with a dull thunk.

‘Are you serious?’

Stiles held up his hands. ‘What?’

‘All the burns I’ve endured?’

Stiles winced. ‘When are you going to get over that?’

‘The day I die,’ Scott said quietly. ‘And at this rate it’s going to be sooner rather than later.’

Stiles didn’t reply. Tired of seeing Scott fail, he took out his wand and showed him the proper technique for the spell they were practising to try and overlook the fact that Scott kind of had a point. Things didn’t always go perfectly in his world. The difference this time was that Derek had never chosen to be a part of it. He swallowed past the lump in his throat, and then said, very quietly, ‘This is different, Scott. In the hospital wing-‘ He bit his tongue on the thing he had been about to say, that Derek had wanted him to stay, and that Stiles hadn’t wanted to leave. ‘It’s all gone way too far. I don’t know how to fix this one, Scott.’

‘Not yet,’ Scott said, frowning as he moved his wand in precise, tight circles. ‘But you’ll figure it out. You always do.’

The conversation with Scott followed him through the rest of the day like an annoying tickle he couldn’t shake. When Stiles eventually made it back to his dormitory that evening, he was irritated and exhausted, wanting nothing more than to go to bed and sleep for the rest of the evening.

His mood was very much not improved when, just as he’d slung his bag onto one of the green armchairs by the fire, someone yelled from the doorway, ‘Stilinski! It’s for you.’

‘What now-?’ Stiles turned, his moan trapped in his throat when he saw Derek standing in the doorway. Eyes wide, Stiles half walked, half ran towards the doorway, the heat of the rest of the common room’s eyes making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

‘What are you doing here?’ Stiles asked, bustling Derek back into the corridor and pulling the door to behind them. ‘How did you even find me?’

Derek shrugged. ‘I asked Scott.’

Stiles’ eyes narrowed. ‘Of course you did.’

Derek shuffled on the balls of his feet, looking uncertainly at the eery, green light spilling into the corridor from the common room.

‘I need your help,’ he started, choosing each word carefully. ‘I need to get this potion right for our exams and I just can’t do it. I’ve tried on my own, but it’s impossible.’

When Stiles didn’t reply, he said, ‘I should have asked you earlier, but you seemed rattled, I didn’t want to make it worse.’

‘Rattled?’ Stiles repeated. ‘I seemed… rattled?’

‘Yeah. Like, stressed.’

Stiles raised an eyebrow. ‘What makes you think I’m not stressed now?’

‘Are you?’ Derek replied.

‘More by the second.’ Stiles let out a deep breath. ‘Look, Derek, I really don’t think this is a good idea, I-‘

‘Don’t,’ Derek put up a finger to stop him, ‘say what I think you’re about to say.’ He clasped his hands together as if he were praying. ‘I really need this, Stiles. Today I made the first potion ever in my life that actually worked and it was all because of you. I need you or I have no chance of ever making one again.’

Stiles stared at him. Something very strange was happing in his chest that he neither understood nor wanted. It was a complicated emotion that was made all the worse when Derek dropped his bag and started to sink onto one knee.

‘Please don’t make me beg,’ he said.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Stiles said, dragging him back up. A gang of Slytherin girls walked past, giggling behind their hands. When they walked into the common room, they left the door wide open so that the people inside had a clear view. ‘Are you actively trying to ruin my entire life?’

‘You weren’t saying anything!’ Derek protested. ‘But seriously. Please help me. My mum will quite literally kill me if I fail potions again.’

Stiles paused, torn between what he knew he should do, and what his entire body wanted him to do. The two always seemed to be at odds lately.

‘Fine,’ he said quickly. ‘But no more begging. I can’t live with that image in my head.’

Back down in the empty potions classroom, Stiles watched as Derek set up his equipment. He chewed at his lip impatiently, tick-tocking his legs back and forth to a steady rhythm.

‘What potion are you making?’ he asked as Derek finished setting up. ‘I’m not going to be at risk of burns or anything am I?’

Derek, for all his composed exterior, went slightly pale.

‘Please don’t say that,’ he winced, pulling his cauldron closer to himself. He fussed with it for a moment, turning it to a perfect ninety degrees, and then said, ‘It’s that calming potion from the start of the year.’ He held up his potion book for Stiles to see, already turned to the correct page. ‘Do you remember it?’

Stiles went cold. All at once, the floor seemed impossibly far away. The table lurched under him.

‘Oh, that one,’ he said, casually despite his rapid increase of heart rate. ‘I think so.’ He put a finger to his chin. ‘I think someone gave me one once and -correct me if I’m not remembering this correctly- it literally almost killed me.’

‘Oh behave,’ Derek muttered, dropping the book back on the table, grinning despite himself. ‘It didn’t almost kill you. You had low blood pressure.’

‘Hmm, see, I’m only remembering the near death part.’

‘I don’t recall,’ Derek said.

Stiles smirked. ‘You were too busy being my knight in shining armour.’ He pretended to faint dramatically onto the desk. ‘The brave Gryffindor saving the helpless Slytherin he’d just poisoned.’

Derek poked him sharply in the side with his wand, causing Stiles to jump back upright, rubbing at his side indignantly.

‘Hey!’ he said. ‘You said no risk of burns!’

‘Can you just help me please?’ Derek said, a slight hint of desperation in his tone. ‘Or I’m going to send an owl home to my mum telling her your awful acting is the reason I’m failing potions, and not my obvious lack of talent.’

Stiles hopped off the table he had been perched on and sat himself down next to Derek instead.

‘Okay, okay, jeeze,’ he said as Derek pushed the book towards him. ‘I’d like to keep my glowing reputation with your family, thanks.’

‘No one said it was glowing.’

‘I’ve taken creative licence on the word,’ Stiles said, skimming his eyes over the instructions as if he didn’t already know them by heart. ‘Okay, you need to start by turning the cauldron on to a low heat.’

They carried on like that for a while, Stiles occasionally correcting him or suggesting improvements. It was easy, pleasant even. Stiles almost let himself forget that this wasn’t something he was allowed to have. He was starting to get drunk off of the sound of Derek’s laugh every time he cracked a joke, was getting tipsy on the high whenever Derek’s hand brushed his own. The longer they worked, the easier it was to forget, and it was all too easy to sit and happily watch the potion bubble away slowly.

Eventually, Stiles was pulled away from his happy stupor by Derek nudging him gently.

‘Hey, are you okay?’

Stiles froze. ‘Me?’

’No, the hundreds of other people in the room,’ Derek replied, rolling his eyes. ‘Obviously you.’ He took the spoon from Stiles’ hand and carried on stirring the potion. ‘You seemed really stressed out earlier. I was worried about you.’

Derek’s expression softened, and Stiles felt every ounce of his happiness disappear into the vapours emanating from the cauldron.

‘I’m great,’ Stiles said thickly, knowing that his every syllable betrayed the lie he was trying to sell. ‘I wasn’t stressed.’

Derek straightened up. ‘You’re so bad at lying.’

This time, it was Stiles’ turn to roll his eyes.

‘Why does everyone keep telling me that?’ He huffed out an irritated breath. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Because it’s true,’ Derek replied. He moved around from his side of the desk, closer to Stiles than he’d ever dare get before. ‘You do this thing with your eyes,’ he said. ‘Like you’re putting up a wall behind them.’

Stiles blinked. He really wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

‘I… I don’t mean to.’

Derek shrugged. The movement used up every part of him. It occurred to Stiles that every movement Derek made was like that- kinetic and fluid- like he was flying.

‘Am I allowed to know why the wall’s there?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Stiles replied, so fast, he snapped his mouth shut, as if it would cram the words back where they came from. Hating the hurt that flashed in Derek’s eyes, Stiles took a deep breath.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said quietly. He closed his eyes, hung his head, so that what he was about to tell Derek didn’t seem so monumental. ‘I did something,’ he said, his voice barely audible despite the silence. ‘Something big, and I… I don’t know how to fix it. Or if I even want to fix it.’

Taking Derek’s silence as a queue to keep going, he looked up. Derek was watching him with a curious expression- not judgmental, just quiet, listening.

‘I’m just preoccupied, that’s all. I want to make it right.’ Stiles forced a smile. ‘But you don’t want to know about that. You wanted help with your potions.’ He took back the spoon and stirred the potion, watching for the faint blue colour to start seeping into the white, but stopped when he noticed that Derek hadn’t moved. ‘You do want to finish this, right?’ he asked.

Derek’s eyes hadn’t left Stiles, complicated and raw- like he’d just won a prize but had already forgotten how he’d won it.

‘What?’ Stiles said, suddenly very aware of his cheeks, which were burning under the scrutiny.

Derek, coming back to himself, said, ‘I just… I didn’t think you’d actually tell me.’

Stiles picked up a bottle of lacewing flies just to have something to hold and pretended to move it closer to the cauldron. Magic was prickling his fingertips, but this was a feeling he’d never experienced before. This wasn’t a tidal wave. This was a rain storm- it took up every part of him.

‘Well,’ he said as evenly as he could despite his trembling hands. ‘I trust you.’

It was a simple truth, but Stiles knew that it was exactly that- the truth. He trusted Derek in a way that he had only ever come to trust Scott and Lydia. Somehow, Derek had slipped in through the back door and made himself at home in Stiles’ life, despite all of Stiles’ protests, and now Stiles was left with nothing but a complex kind of hurt. It was a longing for something that wasn’t tangible yet- the loss of something he never had.

Hating the knotting feeling that had crept into his stomach, Stiles dropped the jar in his hands onto the table. The sound was too loud in his ears.

Derek put a hand over his clenched fist and smiled at him- that sweet, private smile that Stiles had never admitted he loved.

‘Whatever it is, you can fix it,’ he said. ‘You’re Stiles Stilinski. If you can’t figure it out, what hope do the rest of us have?’

Stiles couldn’t help himself. He looked up. In an instant, he was swept away.

‘Why do you say that like it’s easy?’ he asked.

Derek shrugged. ‘You make everything seem easy. Magic, school, potions. Why should this be any different?’

Stiles swallowed. There was no stopping this now.

‘Derek, magic is easy,’ he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. ‘You just need to feel it.’ 

For a moment, Derek gave him a strange look, like he wanted to say something. Then, without any warning, he crossed the space between them and kissed Stiles.

One second, two, three. Stiles forgot how to count. He forgot where he was, what he was supposed to be doing. The spoon in his hand clattered to the floor, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was this kiss, the feeling of being so close- like finally feeling rain after years of drought. There were so many of those little, unimaginable moments, that Stiles allowed himself to sink into them, just once, just to admit it was everything he’d wanted for months.

Then reality struck.

The feeling faded away. The classroom crashed back to earth around him.

Stiles pulled away, breathing hard.

‘You shouldn’t have- we shouldn’t have done that,’ he said. He didn’t recognise his voice. His heart was pounding in his ears. ‘I’m sorry, Derek.’

There was no looking at Derek now. Stiles couldn’t bring himself to see the hurt he’d caused. All he could do was run, bag in hand, as far away from the classroom as possible. Far away from the mess he’d made.

Away from Derek.

*

It was almost early morning by the time someone found him. Pacing the astronomy tower for what felt like the hundredth time, Stiles didn’t notice Scott climb the stone steps until he almost walked into him as he passed them.

All around, the stars hung in the sky like a greeting, but Stiles wasn’t looking at them. He wasn’t looking at anything much: his feet; the floor; the curved edge of the bell as he passed by. His mind was racing in a way he couldn’t control, a thousand thoughts a second. He rubbed the back of his hand across this mouth but it didn’t take the feeling of Derek’s lips away.

When he noticed Scott he stopped, opened his mouth, then closed it again, as if there were hundreds of words waiting to tumble out into the air but all of whom were trapped, frozen in his throat.

‘I know,’ Scott said, breathless from the climb. ‘Derek told me.’

‘I…. Scott. I… fuck,’ Stiles said. His voice was thin, close to breaking. He clenched his hands together and dug his nails into his palms, all the better to help him keep control.

‘I know,’ Scott repeated.

‘He kissed me, Scott.’ Stiles ran his hands over the back of his head, feeling more and more undone by the second. ‘He kissed me. And I let him. How- how do I even go about fixing that?’

Scott walked the last few steps up to where Stiles was standing and leant against the railings.

‘What do you need me to do?’ Scott asked. ‘I can talk to McGonagall, she’ll-‘.

‘-No,’ Stiles bit out. ‘You can’t. She’ll expel me for sure. She said-‘

‘It was an accident.’

Stiles stopped pacing. The words had fallen so gently from Scott’s lips that Stiles wasn’t immediately sure he’d heard him right.

‘What?’ he asked stupidly.

‘It was an accident,’ Scott repeated. ‘Whatever you think you did, Stiles, and whatever you’ve done since, you never meant for this to happen. I know,’ he said, louder, when Stiles made to prove him wrong. ‘You shouldn’t have made that potion in the first place. But you’re Stiles Stilinski. You breathe magic. The universe wouldn’t be in balance if you didn’t bend the rules. ‘

Stiles dragged in a long breath that caught in his chest. He was suddenly aware just how cold he was. 

‘When did everything get so complicated?’

Stiles could barely bring himself to say it, but it was true. The minute Derek had kissed him, fragments of the sky had started to fall down around him and he was in no position to try and put them back where they belonged.

Scott shrugged. ‘I dunno,’ he replied. ‘We’re in the astronomy tower. Is mercury in retrograde or something?’

Stiles laughed despite himself. He walked over the stone railings and looked out at the Hogwarts grounds, spanning into the distance around him. The quidditch pitch was just visible by the light of the moon. Stiles remembered how he felt flying with Derek. Nothing about that night felt like a lie.

Scott came and stood beside him but Stiles kept his eyes on the three goal posts in the distance.

‘Have you tried actually talking to Derek?’ he asked.

‘Of course I haven’t,’ Stiles said. ‘What would I say?’

‘You could start with ‘I’m sorry’ and see where that takes you.’

Stiles shook his head. ‘That’s a very Hufflepuff thing to say.’

Scott laughed. ‘That’s never stopped you from taking my advice before.’ Then, he paused. His tone was measured, considered when he said, quietly. ‘You love him, don’t you?’

Stiles closed his eyes. ‘That’s a very complicated question.’

’No it’s not,’ Scott said, insistent. ‘Do you love him?’

Very slowly, with no one else there to see, Stiles nodded. It felt so wrong to admit it out loud to anyone else that his eyes started to prick with tears. He brushed them away from his cheeks impatiently.

‘You need to talk to him,’ Scott said. ‘He needs to know.’ He waited until Stiles looked at him again before he continued. ‘Promise me.’

Every nerve fought the nod that sealed Stiles’ promise to Scott, but Stiles knew that it was the right thing to do. He couldn’t hide away in the Astronomy tower forever.

Scott looked down at his watch.

‘We should sneak back to our dorms. I’ve got Slughorn at nine.’

Stiles looked down at his own watch. It was nearly four am.

‘This will all work out,’ Scott whispered as they descended the stairs. ‘I know it will.’

As Stiles headed back down to the dungeons, leaving Scott on the winding marble staircase, he couldn’t help but say a silent prayer that that would be true.

*

It was unnervingly easy to find Derek the next day, despite the Slytherins not having any lessons with the Gryffindors until mid morning. Stiles found him alone at the breakfast table, eating porridge and reading a Quidditch magazine. He looked exhausted. Dark purple bags hung under his eyes, which weren’t reading so much as glancing at the pages before turning to the next one.

Stiles, practically buzzing with lack of sleep, walked the length of the hall like a man possessed, so quickly, he turned more than a few heads. He saw Scott from across the hall, who gave him a double thumbs up between bites of toast.

‘I need to talk to you,’ Stiles said the second he got within talking distance of Derek. ‘Alone.’

Derek blinked. ‘Oh, well I have class in five-‘

‘I’ll be quick.’ Stiles tried to put across the urgency of the situation without giving it away to everyone around him.

When Derek didn’t reply, he added a small, ‘Please?’

‘Okay,’ Derek replied softly. He put his spoon down, folded his magazine away and followed Stiles out of the Great Hall to a buzz of whispers from the Gryffindor fifth years.

Stiles led them to an abandoned broom cupboard half way back to the dungeons. It was quiet and secluded and just small enough that he wouldn’t be able to escape once inside.

Hating what would happen if they were caught, Stiles pushed down his better judgement and shoved Derek into the cupboard, following him in and slamming the door shut behind them.

‘What’s this about?’ Derek asked, arranging his arms around a set of old cauldrons that had been stacked up against the wall. ‘If this is about last night, I’m so-‘

‘Why did you kiss me?’ Stiles interrupted him. He was breathing fast and the sound was starting to fill up the small space, despite the books and stacks of broomsticks trying their best to dampen the noise.

Derek blinked. He watched as a book to Stiles’ right started to levitate slowly beside him, swept up in the tide of Stiles’ magic.

‘Stiles, you need to calm down.’

‘Why did you kiss me?’ Stiles repeated.

‘I don’t know,’ Derek started, trying his best to move his arms in frustration around the various objects surrounding him. ‘Because I like you. God,  I don’t know how I could have made it any more obvious.’

For the first time since that first potions class, Stiles recognised pieces of the old Derek, the Derek who hadn’t spared him a glance. For the first time since that day, Stiles didn’t like it.

‘You don’t like me,’ Stiles said.

‘Yes I do.’

‘No,’ Stiles repeated. ‘You don’t.’

Derek exhaled. ‘How would you even begin to know that? Can you read minds now too?’

Stiles opened his mouth to reply, then closed it. He lowered the levitating book back down onto its stack beside him. ‘No, I can’t do that.’

‘Well then,’ Derek said. ‘Explain it to me. I know you’re smart, Stiles, but you don’t know everything.’

‘I drugged you.’

The sentence hung in the air between them like a vacuum. For a moment, they both stared at each other, Stiles close to tears, Derek in a state of complete shock.

‘It was an accident,’ Stiles said quietly when all Derek did was gawk at him. ‘It was in potions that day we first sat next to each other. I had a love potion in my bag and when I dropped my calming potion, they got switched. I tried to tell you, but-‘

‘You blacked out,’ Derek finished for him.

‘Derek, listen, I tried,’ Stiles pleaded. ‘I tried to fix it. Before the Quidditch match, I gave you an antidote but it didn’t work and then you kissed me and I felt so guilty because I din’t know how to fix it and I-‘

‘Stiles,’ Derek said quietly. ‘Stop talking.’

Stiles nodded and instantly started chewing his bottom lip, waiting for the avalanche to come tumbling down on top of him.

Except, Derek didn’t start shouting. He didn’t run out of the cupboard to find Professor McGonagall or Slughorn or anyone. He opened his bag and pulled out the phial that had held the love potion.

‘It didn’t work,’ he said.

‘My antidote?’ Stiles replied. ‘I know.’

Derek shook his head. ’No. Not the antidote.’

This confused Stiles so thoroughly, another book toppled off of the shelf. He caught it haphazardly and shoved it back on its perch, eyes fixed on the phial in Derek’s hands.

‘What are you talking about?’ he said. ‘My potions always work.’

Derek let out a short breath. His fist closed around the phial. ‘You’re not getting what I’m saying.’ He stared fixedly at the ceiling as if the thing he was about to say was causing him great turmoil. ‘Your potion didn’t work on me.’

Stiles’ eyes narrowed, then widened.

‘Oh,’ he said, breathless.

‘Yeah.’

‘My potion didn’t work on you because you…’

‘Yeah,’ Derek repeated.

‘I need you to say it,’ Stiles said. ‘I won’t believe it unless you say it.’

For a long time, the cupboard was filled with an unnatural silence that seemed to drown out the sound of the rest of the school. Stiles watched Derek in terrified anticipation of what he was about to say, something small and golden prickling in the spaces around his ribcage.

‘I will if you will,’ Derek whispered.

They both curled into each other then, so fast they almost bumped heads. This time, when Derek kissed him, Stiles didn’t run. He twisted his hands into the folds of Derek’s robes and pulled him closer, not realising how desperate he had been, a drowning man in a raging sea.

When they eventually broke apart, Stiles was smiling, cheeks wet from tears he felt like he’d been holding in for months. He wiped his sleeve across his face and said thickly, ‘How long have you-?’

‘Forever,’ Derek replied. ‘Since the day we met.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Stiles choked out. ‘For thinking… for not realising.’

Derek shook his head. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘What changed?’ Stiles asked. ‘You barely spoke to me before taking that potion. If it didn’t work, what changed your mind?’

Derek shrugged. ‘I guess the potion amplified everything. It made it easier to admit it to myself. When you gave me the antidote, I felt like I’d always done except that I had an excuse to talk to you.’

Stiles let out a long exhale. He felt weightless, like he could float out of the room and out into the sun-drenched sky.

‘I can’t believe it’s over,’ he said. ‘All year I’ve been so stressed. I hated what I did to you.’ He fiddled with the hem of his sleeves. ‘I’m sorry, Derek. I really am.’

‘Don’t say sorry,’ Derek replied, moving closer. ‘It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’

Stiles kissed him properly then, completely lost in Derek, drunk on the feeling of being his, of his ruined year ending so, so spectacularly. There was no telling how long they’d been tangled up in each other when Derek broke away. He looked down at his watch.

‘We are so late for class,’ he said, grinning wider than Stiles had ever seen.

Stiles laughed. It was euphoric.

‘Since when have I ever followed the rules?’