Chapter Text
Oikawa steadied his breathing, told himself there was nothing to be afraid of, and raised his wand. The boggart only took the form of your worst fear, they said, but he knew he didn’t fear anything. The teacher spoke the opening charm and the lock on the trunk the boggart was hiding in flipped open. The classroom was steeped in silence, filled only with the students breathing and the fluttering of various creatures in cages. The trunk’s lid didn’t budge at first, and Oikawa was beginning to wonder if there was a boggart in there at all. He had volunteered to go first, simply to prove his fearlessness to his classmates. He could feel Iwaizumi watching him from his position with the other students lined up along the wall, his eyes boring holes into the side of Oikawa’s head.
Oikawa was about to crack a joke about the boggart being scared of him, when the lid flew open with a crash. A human arm reached out of the trunk, followed by another, and then the top of a black-haired head. Oikawa’s throat tightened and his tongue became thick and heavy in his mouth. The hair was familiar enough already, and he felt only panic pierce his core when that familiar set of olive green eyes turned towards him from the trunk.
The boggart—Oikawa knew it was a boggart—turned to face him. Despite what he knew, the face of his best friend was starting back at him, with pure hatred in his- in its- eyes. Oikawa’s wand arm began to shake, and he suddenly felt very small in the large Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. No one dared speak, because Oikawa’s shock and fear at the boggart taking the form of someone else in the room was heavy and oppressive. Eyes were glancing at Iwaizumi in confusion, and then back to the boggart.
The first syllables of the boggart-banishing spell that had formed on his tongue died the instant the Iwaizumi boggart began to cry.
Ugly sobs racked the boggarts body, and the fake Iwaizumi spat at Oikawa, who stood rooted in place.
“How could you?” it whispered-shouted between sobs. “I trusted you! And you failed me, Oikawa! You failed all of us!”
It was screaming at him now, spewing out curses and hatred, calling him a failure. Oikawa was on the verge of tears, as he felt the pinpricks of heat forming behind his eyes and his breathing become strangled from the tightness in his chest. The boggart was advancing, forcing Oikawa to stumble backwards, tripping on the hem of his robe.
“You’re not a real wizard, and you’ll never be one! You’ll never be able to amount to anything because you lack talent. Raw magical talent that is so overwhelming in your peers and opponents, but not you.
You practice and practice and practice, pushing yourself to exhaustion, only to fail,” the boggart ranted on, shouting. “No wonder you got sorted into Slytherin, the house of liars and thieves, riding off of others talent!”
Oikawa just wanted it to stop, he wanted to cover his ears and curl up, blocking out the piercing truths the creature spat. Each point it made burrowed its way into Oikawa’s mind and took hold, filling him with the same self-doubt and fear he felt when he first failed at performing a simple charm in his first year. The same fear he felt when he fell off the Quidditch broom during his first practice, ultimately injuring his knee and rendering him unable to participate in practices, getting him kicked off the team. The same fear he felt when his mother first shouted at him, out of frustration, when he asked too many questions about his father.
But the boggart wouldn’t shut up. Its face twisted into a sneer, curling its upper lip, in a look that Oikawa would never see on Iwaizumi’s actual face. “You’re just a mudblood wannabe wizard, dressing up in your mother’s robes, playing pretend. You’re so similar to her, actually. I’m surprised you haven’t failed sooner, based on her track record with magic.”
There was a shout from the side of the classroom where the students stood frozen, which Oikawa recognized as the real Iwaizumi, his Iwaizumi. Not an Iwaizumi that was shouting at him, rage filling his voice, calling him a failure. The words of the boggart had been flowing freely since Oikawa fell, but now he was registering their full weight.
“You’re just like your mother, Tooru! Dependent on others because you’re too weak to do anything for yourself! That’s why your father left, isn’t it? Because you and your mother are weak,” the boggart spat, drawing its arm back in a motion that would make it collide with Oikawa’s face in a resounding slap.
Oikawa didn’t know what came over him then, but his body moved on its own accord. He pushed himself off the ground, not realizing the force of the boggart’s false words had pushed him to lying flat on his back. A scream of defiance rose in his throat, bursting out as he shoved the boggart, hitting it squarely in its chest. Oikawa was half expecting his hands to travel right through the body, as if it were made of mist, but his weight collided full on with the creature.
Still screaming, he beat the boggart back, which made little attempt at fighting him. The boggarts legs collided with the side of the trunk and it fell back, just as Oikawa had. Oikawa slammed the lid of the trunk down, aiming his wand and shouting colloportus, magically relocking the trunk.
Silence washed over the room once again, their professor even standing still with shock. Oikawa’s throat was raw from screaming and his face was burning, now from embarrassment of crying in front of the class. He raised his arm and wiped at his nose with the sleeve of his robe, and he let it fall back, swinging limply at his side. Oikawa dragged his gaze to the gathered students, making eye contact only with Iwaizumi, who seemed to have to most shock registering on his features. His eyes glistened wet as well, but there were no other signs that he had cried.
Oikawa made a slight movement to walk towards Iwaizumi, but fear still gripped him, and he stopped himself. The professor said something about continuing on with the lesson, but the rest of the world was tuned out to Oikawa.
After a gentle nudge from the professor, Oikawa dragged his feet over the side of the classroom and sat heavily in an empty seat as the next student, a Gryffindor by his colors, took his position in front of the trunk, wand at the ready. He paid no attention to the other student’s attempts at banishing the boggart, his mind clouded with troubling emotions. He didn’t even notice when Iwaizumi’s turn came and went, as he banished the boggart almost instantly, and with perfect form and intonation, the professor praised.
The class ended in a haze to Oikawa, and he rose when they were dismissed. He made his way towards the door, the cold air from the corridor amplified by the dried tears on his cheeks. Head down, he shuffled out, wanting only to break into a run towards the Slytherin common rooms and his dorm. Before he could, the figure of Iwaizumi stepped in front of him, effectively blocking his exit, despite the fact that he could simply walk around him in the wide hallway.
Iwaizumi’s arms were crossed over his chest, the blue of his robes offsetting the flush of his skin. Oikawa risked a glance up, but any words he wanted to say fell flat on his tongue as Iwaizumi stepped forward and embraced him.
“I’m sorry,” was all Iwaizumi said before fresh tears spilled out of Oikawa once again.
---
He was slow to open his eyes, as he was each time the dream reoccurred. The same one, over and over, mocking him for his failure, only to wake up and find that that reality faced him every day.
Oikawa stayed motionless in the bed for a few moments, blinking the sleep out of his too-tired eyes. The small cocoon of warmth that was his quilt still enveloped him, and chased the biting chill of the stone Slytherin dungeons away. He could hear the slow, even breathing of his friends around him, which almost lulled Oikawa back into an uneasy sleep, but the fresh memory of the boggart dream kept his eyes trained on a crack in the ceiling. He wanted to move–to get out of bed and stretch and perhaps begin getting ready for the day, but his limbs felt heavy and leaden.
That encounter had been almost four years ago. Back when things were simpler, Oikawa always mused. Back then, he and his friends hadn’t had to worry about life after Hogwarts, figuring out fields of study, or even begin to think about spending years apart. But now the heavy truth of leaving behind the friendships he had formed settled over Oikawa whenever he had free time to think, which wasn’t often anymore, as the end of the year grew closer.
Exhaling slowly, Oikawa rolled onto his side, facing the sleeping figure of Sugawara in the adjacent bed. His face was turned towards him, and Oikawa noted how peaceful he looked; angelic, almost, but Oikawa knew that his soft outward appearance concealed a sharp wit, and an even sharper and honed desire to succeed, as befitted a pure-blooded Slytherin.
Flexing his fingers and toes, Oikawa tried to slowly work the sleep out of him, until he felt loose enough to swing his legs over the side of the bed and sit up, resting his hands on his knees. The memories of the previous night still swam around his head, and flashes of sleep-muddled visions of Iwaizumi and being carried to bed filled his sight. Oikawa smiled lightly at the ghosting feeling of Iwaizumi’s fingers feeding him, though the more he thought about it and tried to grasp at the wisp of sensation, the more his cheeks flamed up and a crawling blush spread across his neck and shoulders.
Oikawa shook himself out, his curled hair bouncing around lightly as he rose and stretched his arms above his head. He yawned loudly and sunk back to a slouch, shuffling across the cold floor to where his robes hung off a peg. The other room’s occupants continued their sleep, with only Hanamaki giving a loud snort and turning onto his stomach, face mushed against his pillow. Oikawa wished he had a camera to snapshot the glorious sight of a drooling Hanamaki for later blackmail (just as a keepsake, he would say), but frowned when he remembered the ban on muggle objects in the school. Of course, the entire school was well aware of the smuggling habits of Hanamaki and Matsukawa, but staff had never been able to find any of their illegal items, as they were called. Mostly, the two smuggled in muggle snacks, sodas, books, and magazines. They had a rather large network running throughout Hogwarts, and Oikawa personally acquired enough energy drinks to ward off death for a month from them.
The shifting of sheets nearby caught Oikawa’s attention and he turned to find Sugawara sitting up in bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Why’re you up? It’s the weekend,” he yawned out, covering his mouth with his hand.
Oikawa padded back to his bed and sat down on the edge. “Couldn’t get back to sleep,” he responded. Sugawara eyed him critically through the gloom, and Oikawa could feel the heat of his stare.
“Another nightmare?”
Oikawa cleared his throat lightly. “Yeah,” he said.
“The same one? Or different?”
“The same.”
“Ah,” Sugawara said in understanding. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” Oikawa admitted. “But thank you, Suga.”
The other beamed at him, the tired features of his face drawing upwards. He yawned again, signaling the end of their conversation, and fell back onto his pillow with a soft snore. Last night’s Quidditch practice had been rough on him, Oikawa knew, so he had decided not to burden his weary friend with anymore of his nonsense nightmares, though Sugawara always insisted that he was perfectly okay with it.
Oikawa, still seated on the edge of his bed, wiggled his feet into the overly-plush slippers on the floor. They had been a gift, from Iwaizumi, after they had passed their O.W.L.s.
“Because you’re always complaining about your cold feet in that damn dungeon,” he griped. Oikawa had smiled like an idiot and accepted the gift, though he knew that Matsukawa and Hanamaki had had a part in the gift.
Reminiscing at the memory as the soft fuzz of the slippers enveloped his feet, Oikawa rose once again and reached for his robe. Since he was up, he might as well get prepared for the day, since he doubted he could fall back asleep. Reaching under his pillow quickly and groping around for an energy drink, he downed it quickly and headed for the dorm bathrooms, leaving the other three Slytherins to sleep peacefully.
---
Later on in the morning, Sugawara was the last one to arrive to their spot at the breakfast table. The hall was chatty, several hundred voices filling the air, so his muttered apologies went unheard to the assembled Slytherins. Matsukawa and Hanamaki were preoccupied with feeding each other bits of fruit, trying to see who could guess the correct flavor after it had been charmed, so Oikawa was the only one to notice the wince Sugawara made as he lowered himself onto the bench across from the others. Oikawa turned to his friend and cocked an eyebrow.
“Rough practice?” Oikawa asked sincerely, but as soon the word “rough” registered with Matsukawa and Hanamaki, they forwent their game and swooped in on Sugawara like vultures.
“Yeah, Suga, you didn’t come back to the dorm last night. Why is that?” Hanamaki propped his chin on his hand, batting his eyelashes innocently.
Sugawara glared daggers at him, but the stares of all three of his friends urged him to answer.
“I got back late,” he hesitated, “because practice ran a bit longer than expected.”
“So it seems,” Hanamaki tutted, still feigning innocence. Oikawa was next to question Sugawara, and it dawned on him that he would never escape the endless prying of his roommates.
“Did you go see the nurse about your soreness?”
“Yeah, she gave me some burning bitterroot balm and told me not to use the broom so long next time.”
The smile Sugawara gave was tinged with forcefulness, which Matsukawa saw through immediately.
“Funny you should say that, because we saw Sawamura on our way here and asked him if he had seen you,” Matsukawa’s face twisted into a sly grin, eyebrows rising, “and he said the exact same thing.”
“So what is the truth, Suga? Did you stick it too far up your ass?”
“The broom, that is.”
The silver-haired boy hung his head in defeat and pushed himself off of the bench. “It’s too early for this,” he complained, grabbing a plateful of pancakes before heading out of the hall. Oikawa watched his friend go, the stiffness of his gait all the more apparent. He turned to face the other two who sat smugly with their victory.
“I hope you two are satisfied in your harassment of our star seeker,” he said as he crossed his arms and tried to look stern.
“Very satisfied,” nodded Matsukawa.
“So very satisfied,” agreed Hanamaki.
“Hmph,” was the only sound Oikawa made before he rose from the table, determined to go find Sugawara and make sure he wasn’t actually hurt. He trusted his friend, of course, but sometimes Sugawara had been known to tell small lies in order to direct attention away from himself, whenever the topic of Quidditch was brought up. Oikawa always told him he was being too humble about his skills both on and off a broom, but Sugawara did not like to gloat (unless it was to Daichi).
Leaving the dynamic duo behind, Oikawa exited the hall and entered into the maze of corridors and staircases that Hogwarts had to offer. Even after seven years at the school, he still marveled in child-like wonder at the sheer vastness of the school and its grounds, enjoying most the bewitched ceilings of the Great Hall when it displayed the sky, and the starry Ravenclaw ceiling (when he used to sneak in and bother Iwaizumi).
As he mounted the staircase, his leather shoes echoing off the stone walls, Oikawa assumed that Sugawara would be found wherever Sawamura was, and Sawamura was always found on weekends in the library, often babysitting his teammates Bokuto and Kuroo, who, in Oikawa’s experience, offered just as much trouble as Matsukawa and Hanamaki did.
Small groups of students passed Oikawa on his way up the stairs, all dressed in their weekend clothing of shorts and tee-shirts. The air wasn’t yet cold enough for longer clothing or additional robes, and the weather had been surprisingly fair since the start of the school year. The beginning of school years often seemed too drenched in a false easiness to Oikawa. Quidditch practices would resume but matches wouldn’t start until November, homework didn’t pick up until it was closer to Christmas, trouble-making students didn’t give prefects much trouble until the first Hogsmeade trip, and the hounding of seventh years to do well on their N.E.W.T.s didn’t bother most students until after Christmas. And currently, Oikawa felt the strange uneasy calm swirl around in the air all across the school.
Oikawa’s feet stopped at the top of the third floor landing, nearly colliding with a huddled group of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw first years. Oikawa walked past them, smiling to himself about their innocence or purity or whatever someone of his year would call the little gremlins (which was Oikawa’s preferred term), and entered the library. Soaring heights of bookshelves lined the high stone walls, and a surprising amount of students filled the scattered tables, all reading or scratching away on parchment paper. Oikawa scanned the large area for any sign of Sawamura, Sugawara, or most likely, two rather boisterous Gryffindors.
Weaving through the rows of shelves and tables, Oikawa noted that most of the students here, to no one’s surprise, were Ravenclaws, with a few scattered Hufflepuffs, and barely any Slytherins or Gryffindors. The thought of seeing Iwaizumi here occurred to Oikawa, but his current mission was to find and console Sugawara, and perhaps pry some details about Sawamura out of him. Oikawa had made it his personal mission to have as much dirt as humanly possible on everyone in his year or those he considered an opponent, though he was often called petty for it.
Sighing at the despondent lack of his targets, Oikawa wound his way back to the library entrance, making to leave. That was his plan, of course, until a large arm flung itself across his shoulders and he found his face being pressed up against the shoulder of an over-excited Gryffindor.
“Oikawa! Akaashi and I were just talking about you! Isn’t it funny how things like that happen?” Bokuto laughed, releasing Oikawa after a momentary half-hug.
“Yes, very funny, Owl-chan,” Oikawa muttered, smoothing out his robes and fixing his hair. Akaashi appeared from behind Bokuto then, wearing a calm, almost slightly annoyed, expression. Bokuto continued to yammer on about funny coincidences, diverging to an encounter he and Kuroo had had the other day in the greenhouses, but Oikawa tuned out the noises and focused on Akaashi.
Akaashi dipped his head in a quick apology to Oikawa for his boyfriend’s antics, as he called them, to which Oikawa smiled.
“I don’t know how you’ve put up with him so long, Akaashi. If Iwa-chan acted like that I would’ve pulled my hair out before we even got accepted into Hogwarts,” he joked. Akaashi made a funny expression at the comparison of Iwaizumi to Bokuto, but only gave a slight smile.
“Well, I’m sure two Bokuto-san would be rather difficult to handle,” he said, glancing to where Bokuto had wandered off towards a nearby bookshelf. “But I wouldn’t have him any other way.”
Oikawa’s stomach wrenched at the adoration that seeped into Akaashi’s voice. Mentally shaking the feeling away, he changed the subject to the original question that he wanted to ask.
“Bokuto loudly mentioned that you two had just been talking about me, presumably on your way here. Might I ask as to what that conversation was about, Akaashi?” Oikawa let a hint of false kindness into his voice, trying to gauge Akaashi’s reaction. He liked him, no doubt, but Akaashi was dangerous. He was incredibly smart and resourceful, and had been since their first year. As a talented and prodigious Ravenclaw, and a prefect on top of that, he had immediately gravitated towards the position of “teacher’s pet”. How he had ended up with Bokuto of all people continued to amaze Oikawa, but that didn’t bother him as much as the fact that Akaashi was infamous for ratting out misbehaving students directly to their heads of house. He could be just as sly and cunning as a Slytherin when he wanted to be, Oikawa knew, and that put him on Oikawa’s list of people to be wary of.
Akaashi cleared his throat before replying to Oikawa. “Bokuto-san and I were just talking about something Iwaizumi-san had said,” he spoke calmly.
“And what did Iwa-chan say about me?” Oikawa asked, a sensation he couldn’t identify creeping slowly up his throat and the back of his neck.
“Only positive things, I assure you, Oikawa-san. But Bokuto-san has selective hearing, and we all know that he gets excited about the simple things.”
Oikawa wasn’t sure as to what that meant, but before he could ask anything else the distinctive cry of Bokuto and Kuroo could be heard from across the library. The students occupying the area looked towards the sound in distaste, and the librarian gave a resound hiss of silence in the direction of the two Gryffindors. Akaashi sighed and stepped past Oikawa.
“I’m going to go make sure Bokuto doesn’t get hexed into oblivion by someone,” he said as he made his way to the mop of black hair and spike of white that was Kuroo and Bokuto. He waved goodbye to Oikawa, who–for the second time in the last forty-eight hours–stood at a loss for words at the hands of a Ravenclaw.
He turned on his heel, hair bouncing around, and strode out of the library, now determined to find Iwaizumi and make him spill the details about that certain conversation. As he was about to climb the stairs once again, an idea occurred to him and he rushed back into the library, nearly toppling over a Hufflepuff that was concealed behind the tower of books in their arms. He muttered an apology and rejoined Akaashi and Bokuto, now with Kuroo, in a small corner of the library.
“Oikawa! Welcome back!” Bokuto greeted cheerily, while Kuroo was twirling his wand between his fingers.
“Hey, Oikawa,” the black-haired Gryffindor said, nodding in his direction.
Oikawa nodded at them both before returning to face Akaashi.
“I forgot to ask, Akaashi,” he huffed out, slightly out of breath from his dash back. “But where did you last see Iwaizumi?”
“I saw him last this morning in the common room, but I passed Shimizu and him on their way to the Owlery.”
The name of the Head Girl registered with Oikawa and left a sour taste in his mouth.
“Thank you,” he quickly let out before leaving the library once again. Oikawa knew that what Akaashi had said was half of a lie, because whenever Iwaizumi was with the Ravenclaw Head Girl, they both could be found in the Room of Requirement. Mounting the stairs once again, he began making his way up to the seventh floor of the castle, a mixture of unease and apprehension coiling in his gut.