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There’s nothing quite like the quiet of sixth grade lunch, especially since he only shares it with three other teachers in his small school, and one of them goes home for lunch. Kat’s sitting on one side of the table, quietly crunching red pepper slices and scrolling through her phone with her thumb. Niles is across from her, flicking through his own phone as he takes a bite of his peanut butter and jelly. He likes that Kat needs the quiet of their thirty minute lunch just as much as he does, before they go back out into the fray.
“Dude, Niles, is this you?” Kat sits up, holding her phone out.
Niles looks up, distracted by the book he’d been reading and blinking at the screenshot of a Reddit thread that’s apparently gone viral on Twitter she’s shoving in his face. “Help me find my friend,” he reads, brows furrowing. “This is my friend, Niles. We met at the midnight release party for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the Northgate… the Northgate Barnes and Noble.” He stops reading aloud, recognizing the story.
We stood next to each other in line and talked about everything. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone all of my secrets so quickly. We were too young for cell phones and I lost the bookmark you gave me with your email address on it somewhere on the way home. If you’re out there, dude, I’d love to talk to you again. -Dan
Then there’s a picture of two young teenagers, both dressed in black robes, one all in green accents, one in yellow, their arms clutching copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that they’d both brought for a bit of light reading as they waited.
Niles can remember it like it was yesterday. Dan’s not joking; random happenstance had put them in line together, but they’d been able to nerd out together almost immediately, competing against each other in the Harry Potter trivia quiz the bookstore hosted while they waited. Dan had beat him by one point, but they’d both lost to a girl twenty people down the line from them. As it got closer to midnight, as their excitement grew, in the middle of talking about Harry’s angst in the fifth book, Niles had blurted out for the very first time a secret he’d been keeping deep inside him.
“I think I...like guys.” Niles holds his book tightly, not wanting to look up for Dan’s reaction. Maybe it’s best that he comes out to a random stranger who he’ll never see again. At least Dan can’t harass him at school or anything.
“Cool,” Dan replies with a shrug.
Niles has never known exactly why Dan had such easy acceptance, but it had shaped the way he came out for the next few years, to his friends, his parents.
“Niles?”
Niles blinks, looking up at Kat. “Hmm?”
“Is that you? It’s not like Niles is a common name, and that Hufflepuff looks like you, but you know, mini-version.”
“It’s- it’s me,” Niles confirms with a fair amount of disbelief. He scrolls through the responses on Twitter.
@actuallyfinal -- Are you the snake or the badger?
@amperdan -- Snake
@actuallyfinal -- guys! We have to help this Slytherin find his support Hufflepuff!
@chillednotice -- @Plottwisttheyloveeachother I ship it
@amperdan -- *blush*
@walkerroz -- signal boost the shit out of this, guys, this is adorable and the fandom needs a win
@amperdan -- :fistemoji: :fistemoji: [Picture of the Hogwarts castle logo in trans flag colors with the words ‘everyone is welcome in this castle.’]
“Are you going to write him back? I mean, it’s kind of blowing up the internet. You’re the buzzy story of the hour.”
Niles feels faint as he hands Kat her phone back. “I- I don’t know.”
“Oh my god, Niles, look at this.” Kat holds it up, having found a picture of a grown up Dan holding Half-Blood Prince in his hands. “He’s hot.”
He is, is the thing, but that doesn’t mean Niles wants to just jump into...whatever this is with him. Dan sailed through puberty, apparently, and Niles is still basically first year Colin Creevey.
“I can hear you judging yourself from here, and I’m sorry I said something about his looks.” Kat sets her phone aside, and reaches across the table to nudge her fingers against his. “Do what you want to do, but you’re a person worth knowing, Niles. You deserve this.”
Niles swallows against the tide of emotions rising inside him. “What should I say? Should I slide into his DMs? Just reply to his tweet? What?”
Kat taps the table, thinking. “Okay how about I take a cute pic of you and your tattoo, and you reply back and ask him to take it to DMs? Give everyone some closure and greet him at the same time, win-win.”
Niles nods, sliding his phone over to Kat. He rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt, revealing the ink he normally keeps hidden. Scrolling over his right forearm is the Dumbledore quote, Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light, with the famous three stars at the edge of the page headers of the American editions.
“Okay, smile!”
It takes everything in Niles’ power not to look awkward as he tries to pose with his forearm.
The bell rings for the end of lunch just as Niles is putting the finishing touches on his reply.
@actuallyfinal -- Are you the snake or the badger?
@amperdan -- Snake
@actuallyfinal -- guys! We have to help this Slytherin find his support Hufflepuff!
@nearlyheadlessniles -- @amperdan @actuallyfinal Found! Badger reporting for this very important duty. See you in DMs?
With effort, he puts his phone in his pocket and prepares to at least attempt pouring some language arts knowledge into his students’ hormone-riddled brains.
When he has a chance to check again after school, his phone has predictably blown up. The thread where he posted his picture has gone viral too.
@actuallyfinal -- Are you the snake or the badger?
@amperdan -- Snake
@actuallyfinal -- guys! We have to help this Slytherin find his support Hufflepuff!
@nearlyheadlessniles -- @amperdan @actuallyfinal Found! Badger reporting for this very important duty. See you in DMs?
@actuallyfinal -- [GIF of Michael Scott screaming ‘It’s happening!’]
@actuallyfinal -- @informerbear omg look at those forearms, total Chidi Anagonye vibes, amirite????
Niles shakes his head, sliding over to his DMs, hopeful. And yes, among all the other messages, given his newfound ‘celebrity,’ is the DM he’s looking for.
@amperdan -- I can’t believe it’s really you.
@nearlyheadlessniles -- It’s me, but I could say the same.
@amperdan -- Thank you for replying when you really didn’t have to.
@amperdan -- it’s just that that night still goes down as one of the best of my entire teenagehood, so...I didn’t want to let another year go by without trying.
@nearlyheadlessniles -- of course! That night meant a lot to me, too.
@amperdan -- can we - would you mind if I called you, instead? If you’re not busy. It’d be great to hear your voice again.
@nearlyheadlessniles -- I’d really like that.
Niles blinks at the reply he’d typed out without thinking about it, but he can’t bring himself to regret it.
@nearlyheadlessniles -- here’s my phone number
It only takes a few moments for an unknown Washington number - that’s good, he’s still in the state, then - to light up Niles’ phone.
Finger trembling, he slides to accept. “Hello?”
“Hey.” Dan’s voice is warmer, deeper of course, but with that same quality of self-deprecation like he finds the whole world amusing. “So, how are you?”
Niles laughs, settling into his chair and putting his feet up on his desk “I’m tired, actually. The basketball games went late last night and I have to get to school early, so…”
“You work at a school?”
“I’m a teacher.”
“You Hufflepuff,” Dan says with a laugh.
“Guilty as charged. Junior high English-Language Arts. And you?”
It’s so weird, but from there, it’s just...easy. Like they weren’t practical strangers before. It’s only when his phone beeps at him that he’s down to 10% battery that he reluctantly says goodbye.
Two Weeks Later
@chillednotice -- @Plottwisttheyloveeachother I ship it
@amperdan -- *blush*
@amperdan -- @nearlyheadlessniles [image: selfie of two men sitting together on a public bench. One, wearing a green Slytherin scarf, is holding the phone to take the picture; the other, wearing a yellow and black Hufflepuff beanie, crowds in close, his hand on the other’s thigh.]
{The internet proceeds to lose their minds.}