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“This is horrendous.” Lance frowned down at the leather-bound book and made a face like he had smelled something rotten.
“A nightmare.” Keith nodded in agreement.
“It’s a bit concerning.” Hunk rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he peered down at the writing. “It’s just… so much …”
“Your boyfriend is certifiably insane.” Pidge told Matt flatly. “Either that or he has an illegal time-turner he’s not telling anyone about. In which case, I want in on it.”
“No one has a time-turner, can you imagine trying to get that past Headmaster Alfor?” Matt plucked the day planner out of Lance’s hands. “And now that you’re all done critiquing my boyfriend’s sanity, do you see what I mean? This is a major problem.”
“It’s certainly not healthy…” Hunk’s brow furrowed. “Surely there has to be something we can do.”
“Actually, I’ve got a plan for that.” Matt smirked. “But I’ll need all of your guys’s help to carry it out.”
“If it’s for Shiro, count us in.” The other four nodded and grinned back at him.
~~~~~
“Christina Ulbrink?” Pidge’s voice seemed to startle the little second-year Gryffindor girl, who jumped with a squeak.
“Um, yes?” She turned around, eyeing Pidge.
“I’m Pidge.” She held out a hand. The girl hesitantly unclenched her fingers from where they were curled around the greenhouse door frame and shook her hand. “You’re supposed to meet up with Shiro to go over some herbology stuff, right?”
“Y-yeah,” the girl cast a nervous look towards the greenhouse. “He said he could help me get over my fear of the venomous tentacula. I didn’t do so well with them in class last week and we’ve got an exam on them coming up…” She trailed off, frowning. “Wait, where is Shiro?”
“A bit busy at the moment.” Pidge said quickly. “Don’t worry, he sent me to help in his place. I used to be terrible at herbology, actually, but now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, I really like it. Venomous tentacula aren’t all that bad once you learn a few tricks with them.”
“Really?” She looked a little doubtful.
“I promise.” Pidge smiled and pushed up her robes. “Now let’s go get our thumbs green!”
~~~~~
Keith tossed a quaffle up and down in his hands idly while he waited in the Quidditch locker room, his broom propped up next to him. He caught the ball as the locker room door opened and their reserve seeker came in, his hair ruffled from the wind.
“Hey, Gary.” Keith greeted.
“Oh, hey, Keith,” the third year looked around expectantly, his brow pulling together in confusion when he didn’t find who he was looking for. “Have you seen Shiro around? He was going to give me some pointers today.”
“Shiro’s a chaser.” Keith pointed out. He was the team’s main seeker.
“Well, yeah, but he’s the captain…” Gary said, looking a bit abashed. “And, I don’t know, he’s really agile when he flies…”
“He is.” Keith tossed the ball up in the air again while Gary got changed. “Shiro’s a little busy today, though. Is it okay if I help you out instead?”
“O-oh, sure,” Gary smiled. “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks, Keith!”
“No problem.” Keith looked at him over the ball. “I won’t go easy on you like Shiro might, though. Fair warning.”
Gary’s eyes flashed and he grinned at the challenge, and Keith decided he liked this kid.
~~~~~
Lance slid into the open chair at the library table and crossed his legs with a flourish, sending a wink to the girl seated across from him. “Well hello there. My name’s Lance, your new charms tutor.”
Tiffany, who was one year below Lance, gave him a bland look. “Where’s Shiro?”
“A little tied up at the moment. He sent me instead.” Lance said, taking out his notebook.
“I would really rather have Shiro tutor me, sorry.”
“He’s busy. And besides, they call me the charm master.” Lance twirled his wand between his fingers like a pencil, waggling his eyebrows. She arched an eyebrow at him in return, looking unimpressed. He set his wand down. “No, really, I got an O on the charms section of my OWLs, I’m actually pretty good at it.”
“Fine, but no flirting.” Tiffany sighed, turning her book around and sliding it toward him. “I can’t get the hang of this one. Shiro said he could help me.”
Lance leaned forward and peered down at the page. “Oh, yeah, this one gives people some trouble when they first learn it. A common problem is not flicking the wrist enough. You’re getting sparks when you do it, right?”
“How did you…?”
“Happened to me the first, like, two dozen times I tried it, until I got the hang of it.” Lance shrugged. “Okay, let’s see your form.”
~~~~~
Hunk frowned at the inside of the closet door as he listened to Haggar chew out some poor kid whose only infraction was, as far as he could tell, mixing up the labels on the toad livers and frog livers. A rather small mistake, as far as potionmaking was concerned, but from the way Haggar was going off at him, you would have thought he had tried to slip her a draught of sleeping death. The kid -- Anthony -- was a fellow Hufflepuff though, and Hunk knew first-hand how much she tended to antagonize their house for little to no reason.
She gave him an enormous list of things to clean, polish, and sort in the potions lab (a disproportionate punishment for his crime) and then left, her heels clicking against the cobblestone floors of the dungeons. Hunk heard Anthony sigh, and a dull clang came as he lightly kicked a cauldron while muttering “at least I won’t have to do this completely alone…”
That sounded like Hunk’s cue. He eased open the door of the closet and found the younger Hufflepuff bent over a large cauldron, scrubbing at whatever was crusted onto the sides of it. “Hey, um--”
Anthony let out a yelp and nearly knocked his head on the cauldron, surprised to find someone else in the room with him. “Who--? Oh, Hunk. What were you doing in… the, uh, closet?”
“Hiding from Haggar.” Hunk said easily, setting the plate of his signature double-chocolate brownies on a nearby desk. He had whipped them up after baking the cake, just in case Haggar caught him and he needed something to bribe her with. “Heard about your detention from Shiro. This is ridiculous.”
“Tell me about it.” He sighed. “Shiro said he would help me, though, since it’s irrationally unfair.”
“Yeah, about that.” Hunk rubbed the back of his neck. “You’ll still get help, but it’ll be me instead of Shiro. That okay?”
“Oh, sure.” Anthony said, blinking. “What’s Shiro doing?”
“He’s just a little overbooked today, that’s all.” Hunk shrugged. “Want a brownie, before we start?”
~~~~~
Shiro blinked in confusion. “But… we had an appointment…”
“Yes, well, Headmaster Alfor is busy right now.” The painting of the headmaster’s advisor, Coran, told him, planting his feet firmly, as though to tell him he would not be opening the door under any circumstances. “Anyway, he said you contacted him about rescheduling it.”
“I… did?” Shiro remembered doing no such thing.
“Yes, yes, in the note you sent along with the lemon sweets.” Coran nodded, twirling his moustache. “And those were quite delicious, by the way.”
Shiro frowned. “How did you eat them, if you’re a painting?”
Coran looked offended. “How dare you. I’ll have you know, I have my ways!” He crossed his arms. “Anyway, Headmaster Alfor is away right now won’t be back until Sunday evening. You’ll just have to wait until the appointment you rescheduled on Monday.”
“But I didn’t reschedule--”
“No, no, I don’t make mistakes when it comes to the headmaster’s schedule.” Coran said, waving a sky-blue and gold day planner in his direction. Or at least, he thought he was. It was a little hard to tell, in a two-dimensional painting. Coran reached into the bag of yellow candies sitting on the painted table next to him and plucked one up. “Now shoo, off with you.”
Not knowing what else to do, Shiro turned around and left the corridor leading to the headmaster’s office. He was positive he hadn’t rescheduled their meeting; it had been the only available time slot left in his day, and he remembered the feeling of resignation as he penciled it in. Well, he supposed he could move on to the next thing on his agenda, try to get a head start on it. Darn it, and he had gotten up early for this meeting, too…
Shiro didn’t realize there was someone planted in the middle of the corridor until he had nearly walked into them. He blinked and looked up. “Matt?”
Matt frowned at him, hands on his hips. “You, mister Head-Boy, are in big trouble.” He poked Shiro in the center of his chest with the hand holding a black leather-bound day planner.
Shiro sighed. “Matt, I really don’t have time--”
“No, you didn’t, but now you do.” Matt flipped to February 29th and showed him the page, the space crammed full of tiny writing. “Quidditch training with your reserve seeker -- you’re not even a seeker! -- charms tutoring, herbology help, cleaning the potions lab for detention… Shiro, it’s not even your detention!”
“But it’s completely unfair. There’s no way he can do that all by himself.” Shiro said. “And most of those students I’m tutoring are first or second years; that’s what we as upperclassmen are supposed to do.”
“But you’re not supposed to kill yourself with stress helping every single one of them.” Matt told him. “And that’s not even touching all the meetings you have scheduled with professors. Six AM to talk to Alfor about opening a lifeguarding position ?”
“The giant squid is a legitimate danger, and frankly I’m surprised we don’t have a lifeguard position established already.” Shiro said.
“ Shiro, this is a magic school .”
“Doesn’t mean people can’t drown.” Shiro shrugged. “Anyway, can I have my planner back? I need to check what room I’m overseeing for study hall this morning.”
“You’re not overseeing anything.” Matt snatched the day planner back. “Pidge is handling your study hall and the herbology thing, everyone else is taking care of your other obligations. Right now, all you need to do is get your cute, over-worked butt to the Room of Requirement.”
“Why?” Shiro asked flatly, unamused.
“Because it’s your damn birthday and you need to take a break and enjoy it.” Matt told him. “The bags under your eyes are so heavy, they don’t even qualify for owl-delivery anymore.”
“But… I have things to do…” Shiro tried to protest, but he could feel his resolve waning. He was exhausted, having gotten up early for this meeting with Alfor. He had skipped breakfast this morning and had only eaten a little at dinner the night before while he helped another first year with their transfiguration homework, and he was starving now. He didn’t know when the last time he had gotten a full night’s sleep was. He had actually forgotten today was his birthday, he had been so distracted lately. In his defense, though, he had only had a handful of actual birthdays, so he didn’t always remember it.
“Your things are taken care of, pumpkin-spice.” Matt’s voice softened and he leaned up to kiss Shiro’s nose. “Now let me take care of you.”
Shiro hesitated. “You’re sure everything’s taken care of?”
“Everything.” Matt nodded, taking his hands. “I even fed your cat for you.”
“She let you?” Shiro raised an eyebrow at that. Black usually didn’t let anyone besides Shiro near her.
“Well, I put a bowl of cat food on the floor, told her it was from you, and then left the room. I checked in later though, and it was licked clean.” Matt said. “She gave me her most friendly glare. We had a connection, it was awesome.”
Shiro chuckled. “Okay.” He squeezed Matt’s hands, and the two of them set off down the corridor. “What’s in the Room of Requirement?” He asked, curious.
“Things you require, duh.” Matt teased him.
“In principle, yes, but what are you using it for?” Shiro said.
“Just what I said. Everything you need to have a nice, relaxing birthday.” Matt said, lifting a hand and knocking three times on the blank wall opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy teaching the trolls ballet. The stones slid apart to reveal a plain, unobtrusive wooden door with a silver handle. Matt opened the door and gave Shiro a gentle tap on the small of his back to prompt him forward.
“Wow…” Shiro looked around at the magical room. The walls were painted a deep, calming blue, and the silver and gold stars were painted on the domed ceiling. Gossamer white curtains fluttered in the breeze blowing in through the open windows, with heavy black drapes pinned off to the sides that were perfect for darkening the room for a nap. A table off to the side held a magnificent-looking sheet cake, with red, green, blue, yellow, and dark purple swirled into the white icing like watercolors, and curling silver script in the center reading Happy Birthday, Shiro . He would recognize Hunk’s handiwork anywhere, and hoped that the stack of plates and water glasses next to the cake meant the rest of them would be joining them later. In the center of the room were more pillows and blankets than Shiro could count, arranged haphazardly into a cozy-looking nest, and curled up in a patch of sunlight on a royal purple pillow was his cat, Black. She lifted her head when they entered and let out a mrrrp in greeting to Shiro, getting up with a languid stretch before walking over to bump her head on his shin.
“Matt, this is amazing,” Shiro smiled, looking around. “I can’t believe you even brought Black. Hey, girl,” he bent down to pick her up.
“I didn’t, actually.” Matt admitted, showing him a scratch on his forearm. “I tried to coerce her with treats, but in the end all Keith had to do was tell her it was a surprise for you and she trotted after him like it was nothing. I swear she can understand human speech.”
“Mm,” Shiro hummed, smiling into Black’s fur. He often suspected the same thing. “So, what are we supposed to do with all these pillows?”
“Take a nap, obviously.” Matt said, kicking off his shoes. “Baggage check for Shiro’s eye-bags, you’re overdue for some sleep.”
“I’m not overdue …” Shiro tried to protest. Both Matt and Black gave him a flat look, the latter reaching up to bat his nose with her paw. He laughed quietly. “Okay, okay. Nap it is. And then later, cake?”
“Yep.” Matt grinned, patting the pillow next to him. “There are some other snacks Hunk made in the mini-fridge over there -- ranging from terribly healthy to deliciously unhealthy, although he says to tell you to eat the healthy ones first -- that you can have if you’re hungry, and we can have the cake when the others come by after they’re done with their assignments.”
“That sounds great.” Shiro said, sitting down in the center of the pillow nest. He went to put Black down, but she hooked her claws into his robes and emitted what sounded like a low growl, as threatening as a slightly-larger-than-average house-cat could sound.
“I’ll spoon you, you spoon the cat.” Matt suggested.
“It’s not spooning when it’s with a cat …” Shiro chuckled, but it was true, Black only allowed him to put her down if it was obvious he was still going to cuddle her. He let her rest in the pocket of his arms as he felt Matt slide into place behind him, tucking an arm around his waist.
“Sweet dreams, birthday boy,” Matt kissed the back of his neck as the curtains drew themselves closed, and Shiro was out like a light, sandwiched between his boyfriend and his purring cat.