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[Year One]
Stiles loved Hogwarts. Stiles loved everything about Hogwarts. He loved the floating candles in the Great Hall, and the magically refilling plates, and the cups that never run out of pumpkin juice. He loved the moving hallways and the rotating staircases. He loved the Hufflepuff Common Room, with it's puffy golden chairs and copper colored fireplaces and colorful potted plants, and the way it always smelled like whatever the kitchens are cooking up next. He loved his classes - he loved Potions in SPITE of skeevy Professor Harris - but the point stands, because MAGIC. He loved his owl, a Tawny named Saffron, and he loved the way Chocolate Frogs wriggled a bit before you bit them.
"Gross," Scott said admiringly. His parents had both been Muggles, apparently, and Scott found magic even more fascinating than Stiles did. Stiles's mother had been a witch, so at least Stiles' father hadn't been blindsided by it the way Scott's mom had been.
"When my Hogwarts letter came, she fainted!" Scott confided, an odd mix of worried and amused. "I think it was mostly the owl, though."
"Right. Because owls are totally weirder than magic."
"I think up until that point she'd mostly convinced herself she'd been imagining it."
"Oh yeah? What did you do?"
Scott shrugged. "I got a really bad haircut once, and my hair just grew back overnight."
Stiles nearly choked in excitement. "My hair never grows at all!" Not since - whatever. Not a super appropriate time to talk about that, even if Stiles wanted to.
Scott beamed back at him. "Cool." Just another check in the 'Why Stiles and Scott Are Totally Best Friends Forever' column. Scott had already started scratching one down in the back of his Transfiguration book. For posterity.
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Though First Years weren't allowed to try out for the House Teams, plenty of the students came to watch the tryouts anyway. Some of the braver students turned out to cheer for siblings in other Houses. Stiles was content enough with the gaggle of Hufflepuffs, though he waved merrily at where Scott was standing with the Gryffindors. Lydia was snubbing the rest of the Ravenclaws - typical - to cheer on her sister Maggie, in Gryffindor. Jackson was standing just behind Stiles, but his eyes kept dragging towards the Slytherin team, and Danny.
It was a little boring, Stiles admitted after a few minutes, and a little surprising how many people trying out for the team could barely even ride a broom in a straight line, much less make it through some of the drills the captains had in place.
"Good thing we're only looking for a Seeker this year," Clarabelle said under her breath, and Stiles nodded. Hufflepuff had won most of its Quidditch matches last year, but a large part of that had been chalked up to their former Seeker, a remarkably speedy girl named Deena Jenner who was, apparently, now working for the Committee on Experimental Charms due to her superior dodging skills.
Above Stiles's head, on the Quidditch Pitch, there was a loud rour. "Greenberg! Get back in formation, or I’m going to rip your throat out with my teeth!"
"Who's that?" Stiles asked. He felt a bit stunned. This is what stunned felt like. He felt a sudden affiliation with the garden gnomes his father made him pull out of the garden.
"Derek Hale," Clarabelle said absently. She was still watching the Hufflepuffs in the air run through their drills.
"I think I just entered puberty," Stiles whispered absently, and next to him Clarabelle choked. Stiles could feel all the blood rising to his face, like the time he'd fallen face first into a pile of dittany, to which he was mildly allergic.
"Do I -- should I bring you to Madame Morrell?"
"Not like that!" Stiles shrieked. "I just mean.... wow, he looks like a serial killer. A teenage serial killer. Do we allow those at Hogwarts?" Apparently there were a few students with veela blood, and a girl who was part-harpy, so Stiles wasn't exactly ruling things out.
"He's not a serial killer," Clarabelle said, almost instantly. Which could honestly have been Hufflepuff solidarity. "He's just sort of... moody," she tacked on after a moment, more philosophically. "I wouldn't say his bark is worse than his bite, but he doesn't actually do much of either. Mostly glowers."
"Maybe serial killers are my type," Stiles said thoughtfully, and Clarabelle choked again.
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Erica Reyes was waiting for him when he rounded the corner. "Stilinski!"
"Reyes?" Stiles said back, uncomfortably. Erica had once hit Stiles with a Levitating Charm for 'looking at her funny'. After that Stiles had decided not to compliment her new hair.
"STILINSKI." She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm watching you."
"Okay?"
"You do look like some kind of high-strung woodland creature," she continued, critically, "so I understand the appeal."
"... thanks?" If she said he had a purty mouth, he's hitting her with a Jelly Legs Curse and running for it.
"Try to be more interesting next time," she said, and stalked off in the other direction.
"What in the hell," Stiles said. Tuesday was too early in the week to deal with this shit.
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Tuesday was also too early in the week to get detention, but apparently the universe didn't care much about what Stiles could and could not handle. Like it was his fault Professor Harris couldn't handle a tiny explosion or two. You think the man would have had some sense, and chosen something more calm. Like Divination. Stiles had heard Divination was so calming it basically put you to sleep.
"Professor Harris," Scott said, while Stiles poked him in the side with his elbow, DO NOT ENGAGE, "Can we --"
"Let's split you up by House," Harris continued, in that faux pleasant voice that made Stiles want to stomp mandrakes. "And whichever House is last to complete their task will lose fifteen House Points."
"Can he even do that?" one of the other First Years whispered, scandalized. The one thing Stiles had learned thus far this year was that yes, Harris could. And often would.
"Slytherins will be polishing the Trophy Room," and of course Harris would give his own House the easiest job, "the Gryffindors will join Deaton in gathering puffapods from the Forbidden Forest," Stiles looked longingly at Scott, but to no avail; "the Ravenclaws will sort and shelve books with Madame Pince in the Library...
"And the Hufflepuffs," Harris said, finally, and Stiles would swear to God a manic look came into his eyes whenever he looked at Stiles. Stiles's father was in law enforcement; he knew sociopathy when he saw it. "Madame Sprout needs someone to harvest the Venomous Tentacula leaves in Greenhouse Five. All of them."
Well that sounded about the opposite of safe.
"And as there's only two of you," he tacked on with a creepy grimace that might, generously, be called a smile, "I'd hurry up."
Only two? Stiles tried to scan the rest of the room. There were no other Hufflepuff First Years, and Stiles didn't know most of the older students yet. And all students were hard to tell apart, in a hurry, when everyone wore black robes. The ties should have tipped it off, but no one wore them all the time - Stiles's was currently stuffed in his pocket, and he supposes he was lucky Harris didn't deduct more points just for that - and at a distance the red-gold striped Gyrffindor tie was difficult to parse from the Hufflepuff's yellow with delicate black lines.
"Freeze them first."
"What?"
"It's easier if you freeze them first." Hale raised an eyebrow and gestured toward the plant he'd been wrangling. "Most moving plants don't like the cold. Glacius."
"Oh. Oh!" Stiles tilted his head. “Glacius!”
Only a few blue-white bits sparked at the end of his wand. Incredibly underwhelming.
Hale shook his head. "Flick down, at the end. Less of a sweep."
"Why does no one ever telll us these things," he muttered resentfully. "It's not like these are poisonous or anything."
"The spirit of adventure?"
"... was that sarcasm."
Derek raised an eyebrow.
"That was sarcasm." Stiles practically beamed. "You're sarcastic. So much more about you has suddenly become clear."
"Because I'm sarcastic?"
"Because you're sarcastic!" Sarcasm, as far as Stiles was concerned, was a secret brotherhood. Scott had an angel face that let him get away with it. Derek was apparently the same, only with scary face. "You know that makes you about a billion time less scary, right?"
Derek frowned. "I'm not scary."
"Dude. People pass to the other side of the hall when they see you."
"There was... an incident."
Stiles made a mental note to ask Clarabelle about that later. "Uh huh."
Derek scowled. "Just - forget it."
"NEVER," Stiles said cheerfully. "I know people, Hale."
Derek snorted. "Sure, Gryffindors," the way someone else might say Mudblood.
"Hey now. Gryffindors are pretty cool. Better than Slytherins." Sometimes better than Ravenclaws too, Stiles thought, who he could already see kept to themselves, and their superiority complexes. No wonder they hung out with the Slytherins so often.
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For the rest of the year, whenever Stiles saw Derek in the Halls he made sure to yell hello, even if Derek was on one of the moving staircases.
Derek still glowered, but there was a little dimple at the corner of his mouth he could never quite suppress.
[Second Year]
In Second Year, both Stiles and Jackson tried out for the Quidditch Team. Stiles didn't make it. Jackson, with his stupid hair and his stupid new state of the art broom, did.
"As an alternate," Scott reminded helpfully. "He probably won't even get to play."
"But he could," Stiles countered, and stabbed his shepherd's pie as viciously as he could. He'd taken refuge at the Gryffindor table with Scott, leaving Jackson to preen and pretend not to be watching Lydia Martin as he did it. Ugh. What a jerk.
Derek was staring at him from the Hufflepuff table. Stiles waved, quickly, and then reached to pull the potatoes out of Scott's hair. Probably he should have put his fork down first.
"Sorry, bro."
Scott shrugged. "No problem. Just make sure it doesn't look like I have dandruff."
"We've got potions for that, you know."
"I don't actually have dandruff! You put potatoes in my hair!"
When he thought to look up again Derek was gone.
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Why had he bothered bribing Danny with a passel of Bertie Bott’s to spell his Gamecube to work if no one was going to play it with him?
Clarabelle was from an entirely magic family, and refused to play video games with him anymore. (Stiles, personally, couldn't take another game of Exploding Snap).
"Is that Mario Kart?" Derek asked.
Stiles would swear to his nonexistent grandchildren that his heart grew three sizes that day. "You know Mario Kart?" he squeaked.
Derek nodded. "Some of the members of my family are... uh, Muggles," he added, after a significant pause. "One of my Uncles lives in the Muggle part of California."
"That's cool," Stiles said, and jiggled one of his legs up and down. "My dad's a Muggle too. We live near Beacon Hills, 'cause that's where my mother was from. He didn't want me losing my heritage, or whatever." Beacon Hill styled itself as the Salem of the West Coast, at least after all that nonsense with Sunnydale had gone down.
"My uncle lives a bit North of Beacon Hills," Derek said, after a minute.
"Cool," Stiles said, and then wanted to punch himself in the face. There was probably a spell for that. "Wanna play?"
Derek stared at him for a moment. One of these days Derek was going to just ANSWER him, Stiles was sure. Even if that day was probably twenty years from now. "Okay," he said, and sat down next to Stiles on the couch. "But I'm --
"Allison and Scott have been head over heels for each other since she kicked Jackson's ass in the Common Room after Scott got sorted. I just - I just want something of my own, I guess," Stiles said.
Derek shrugged. "Laura was a Gryffindor."
"Laura?"
"My sister."
"You have a sister?"
Derek's lips quirked. "Two. Laura is older, and Cora is younger. Laura was - she graduated a few years ago. I love her, but it it's kind of nice to be out from under her shadow."
Derek spent time in someone's shadow? What kind of SUPER-WITCH was Laura Hale? "What's she doing now?"
"She's a dragon trainer."
"Seriously?"
Derek seemed caught between a sigh and a smile. A facial expression that close to constipation shouldn't have been that attractive. "Seriously."
Super-witch indeed. Stiles's mother had been an Herbologist - a good one, by all accounts, but it wasn't exactly something that had to be lived up to. Plus, no siblings. Stiles could always get on with his weird little self any way he wanted.
"Most of the Hales are Gryffindors," Derek said after their second race. "My uncle was a Slytherin, but even he married a Gryffindor. I'm just kind of odd, I guess."
"Stilinskis aren't anything. Or, uhm. My mom’s family, the Hollaways, aren't. My dad's family is all Muggles. But my mom was a Ravenclaw, and her sister was a Gryffindor, and my granddad was a Hufflepuff too, and my grandma went to Bauxbatons, so. I don't know."
"Sounds nice," Derek said, with the kind of longing Stiles was going to chalk up to Christmases spent getting red and gold sweaters.
"It's a mess! Man, the Triwizard Tournament last year? I thought my grandparents were going to have a stroke rooting for their champions, and then the girl from Durmstrang ended up winning anyway."
Early on the Hufflepuff First Years had taken a vote and decided that Scott was both trustworthy enough and over often enough to qualify as an honorary Hufflepuff, and that he could have the password to the Common Room. Frankly, Stiles was glad it meant he didn't have to trek all the way up to Gryffindor Tower all the time.
"Hey Scott!" Stiles called out, cheerful. "We're almost done the next race, wanna play?"
Scott sat down, gingerly, on the other side of Stiles. In his defense, Derek still hadn't really grown into his serial killer eyebrows. Not that Stiles was looking forward to that, or anything.
"I get to be Luigi," Scott said, after a moment, and Derek grunted.
So that went okay.
[Year Three]
In Stiles's Third Year, he finally got to take the interesting classes - Arithmancy and Ancient Runes with Lydia, and the Care of Magical Creatures with Scott. Much more surprisingly, Lydia was also taking Divination.
"Isn't that sort of...?"
Lydia snorted. Delicately. Rather adorably, in Stiles's opinion. If anyone ever asked. "Lucky guesswork? Wildly unscientific? Imprecise at best?"
"Sure. All of the above."
Lydia didn't look up from what she was scribbling. 'There are documented cases of True Seers, and Prophies that are simply too accurate to discount. Not to mention that some disciplines are far more accurate than others. It begs a lot of questions."
"You're trying to crack Divination."
"Mmm."
"You're trying to hack Divination."
"Yes, Stiles," Lydia snapped. "Now hand me that copy of Unfogging the Future and go away."
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Sometime last year Stiles had realized that Derek didn't seem to have too many friends. (Not that Stiles was throwing stones, but he was cool with living the relatively unexamined life, thanks.) There was Erica, who was actually pretty fun when she wasn't trying to ambush Stiles in corridors and scare the crap out of him; she also had a fondness for Muggle comic books and chocolate, which put her at least about Jackson, in Stiles's humble opinion. Stiles thought Boyd was the absolute BEE'S KNEES, but considering it took about two months before Boyd even said one word to Stiles, he was pretty sure the feeling was not mutual. Last and least-ish was Isaac, who Stiles honestly didn't care for one way or another, except that both Derek and Scott were friends with him. So needs must, and all that. Whatever. Stiles can totally play nicely with others. Or at least not cast Jelly Legs curses on them. Either-or.
However, when Derek became Captain of the Quidditch Team Sixth Year, he'd gained a certain kind of... popularity, Stiles guessed? Not to mention he'd really started to grow into the eyebrows. And muscles. There were way more muscles, all of a sudden. Which was generally hard to discern underneath school robes, so they were - remarkable. Not that Stiles was remarking on them to anyone. Nope.
"You're drooling," Clarabelle whispered.
"Shut up," Stiles shot back furiously, and she snickered. Clarabelle seemed to be the only one who had any idea about Stiles's crush on Derek. Or maybe everyone did, and Clara was the only one who said anything.
"I don't even swing that way and I noticed. Just saying."
"I knoowwww. Ugh." Stiles hadn't even bothered to go out for the Quidditch Team this year. They were only looking for Beaters, and Stiles distinctly lacked the upper body strength. Didn't mean he wasn't watching the tryouts though. Obviously.
"We go to the Yule Ball this year!" Scott said excitedly. Scott said a lot of things excitedly. It was one of the best-worst things about him. Like, sometimes Stiles was just NOT excited, and he didn’t have the energy to pretend he gave nearly as much of a crap as Scott did.
"Well, I thought about asking Lydia," Stiles said. "Just for posterity, even though she'd definitely turn me down. But Jackson asked her months and months ago anyway. Scott's taking Allison and quite possibly Isaac, Erica's going with Boyd. Danny's going out with some Sixth Year?"
"Michael Alisdair."
"Creepy Slytherin Sixth Year," Stiles agreed. "So... I don't know, I guess Isaac and I are just going to be losers together. You're probably going with someone --"
"I'm not," Derek interrupted. "I'm not... going with anyone."
"Oh." That was weird, considering how high Derek was on the desirables list. Flocks-of-people-giggling-as-he-passed desirable. Sixth Year Quidditch Captain, body of a minor Greek God, getting hotter and hotter every year; Stiles may have made a brief scientific study. Not always much in the conversation department, sure, but sarcastic and smart. Maybe the person he'd wanted to go with was already going with someone else? "That's - you can hang out with me? I've got a really great hiding spot staked out, for when Harris inevitably swoops in."
“You should go with me.”
“That’s what I said--”
"No," Derek gritted out. "Go to the Yule Ball with me."
Stiles wasn’t exactly proud of the sound that came out of his mouth. He might, on his deathbed, call it a squeak. "Julie asked you to the dance three months ago," he said shrilly. "And she was just the first!"
Derek had his shoulders hunched up, and it was then Stiles realized he hadn't actually said YES.
"Yes!" he shouted. "Obviously yes, obviously, I -- I would absolutely love to go to the Yule Ball with you."
Derek smiles then - Derek is smiling at Stiles like that.
Holy shit, Stiles thinks.
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"Dude," Scott says. "You need to chill."
Stiles doesn't just need to chill. Stiles needs a Butterbeer. Stiles needs a shot of Firewhiskey. Stiles needs a tranquilizer.
"Why did I say yes?" he moaned. "Why?"
"Because you've been head over heels for him since you first saw his caterpillar eyebrows."
"Stop being reasonable."
Scott shrugged. "Stop touching your hair. Didn't Erica threaten to kill you if you touched your hair again?"
Stiles shoved his hands into his pockets. Or near where his pockets usually were. Goddamn dress robes. "Everything is terrible."
"Everything is FINE."
"Remind me why you're getting dressed in Gryffindor, again?" Isaac asked. He was lying on the bed opposite Scott's, throwing a small practice Snitch up at the ceiling and catching it. His dressed robes were shabby, but a nice blue color that matched his eyes, the fink.
"Derek wanted to pick me up," Stiles said, and couldn't help the goofy grin he knew was stretching his face. "He's weird."
Scott scrunched up his nose. "You love it."
"I do. It's tragic."
"You're tragic."
"Your face is tragic."
Stiles could feel Isaac's judging gaze from the other side of the room, but whatever. Best bros before less-than-best bros. Suckit. "Don't talk to me about tragic. You're not stuck in a room with two idiots."
Stiles figured the better part of valor was to ignore him. "How do you go out with someone way more awesome than you are?" he asked Scott, desperately. "Let's be real, Allison is way cooler than you. Allison is cooler than both of you put together." It was almost criminal, actually. Allison had been the Slytherin's Leading Chaser ever since her Third Year, was on track to be Captain by next year, and she knew a spell that could transmutate water into firewhiskey. If she were any cooler, she'd probably be a literal rock star. Or whatever the wizarding world equivalent was.
"Just try and take comfort in that fact that they have awesome taste."
"Huh."
} }
"Come on," Scott said. and tugged at Isaac's sleeve. "Let's go pick up Allison."
"Do you want to dance?"
"I don't, uhm."
"We don't have to," Derek said, stiff.
"No - I mean, if YOU don't want to - but I only know how to lead," Stiles admitted, and Derek's face cracked into a smile.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
And Stiles didn't step on Derek's toes more than a half dozen times.
Perfect.
[Year Four]
Finally, in Fourth Year, Stiles and Scott both became alternates.
"Not that I wish horrific injury on our teammates," Stiles said cheerfully, as they walked to the Dining Hall. "But I kind of do?"
Next to him, Derek snorted.
"Not you!"
"No shit, not me. You'd be a terrible Beater."
"Scott's a great Beater," Stiles said loyally, and they fistbumped. "Best alternate Beater there is."
"That'd be more touching if he didn't play for Gryffindor."
"I'm not saying they're going to win the House Cup, or anything."
"Hey!"
"It's Hufflepuff''s Year!" Stiles insisted, and Derek slung an easy arm around his shoulders. "Gryffindor is just going to have to accept defeat gracefully."
Scott made a face. "As entertaining and gross as you two are, I have to go study with Isaac in the Library."
"Studying, or studying?" Stiles asked, with an exaggerated leer. It was worth Scott's eyeroll.
"Studying. Harris has it out for him."
"Harris has it out for anyone who isn't Lydia. Which, if you think about it - kind of gross."
"She'd eat him alive," Derek said. Kind of admiringly, actually. Hey now!
"Stop thinking about how awesome Lydia is while I'm right next to you."
"You do it!"
Stiles opened his mouth to defend himself. But-- "Okay, fair."
"Thought so," Derek said smugly.
Scott rolled his eyes again. "I'll see you in Potions tomorrow."
"Bye!"
"So is Scott... dating Isaac?"
"I don't ask questions. Everyone seems happy, so why poke the pixies' nest, you know?"
"Right."
Stiles wouldn't say he had a reputation for being happy-go-lucky -- that involved way less sarcasm than Stiles was capable of -- but he did tend to take some things a little less seriously than most people would. Which is probably why Derek looks a little blown away when Stiles almost immediately has a meltdown when Derek says they need to talk.
It's not like Stiles didn't see this coming. They were always a long shot - Derek is miles out of Stiles's league, and older to boot. He's going to graduate in a few months! Stiles at least thought they would have until then.
"It's our last year together!" he says, and tried to pretend he wasn't blinking back tears, shit. It was far from unheard of for couples from different years to break up once half the couple graduated, but it was only December.
Derek blinked. "Did you - did you just say something about Quidditch groupies?"
"Are you laughing at me?" Stiles asked, outraged.
Derek looked torn between laughter and horror. "I'm not breaking up with you, Stiles!"
"...no?"
"No, you snidget! I was - I was trying to tell you something. About me. About my family."
Stiles squinted. "If this is about being a werewolf, you know that's the worst kept secret in Hufflepuff, right?"
Derek's eyes took on a distinctly panicked sheen, like after he said something bad about Gryffindor in front of Isaac, or the time he'd told Lydia she was wasting her time on Divination.
"No one talks about it, or anything," Stiles hurried to reassure him. "But dude, all those nights you're not in the dorm? Specifically all those full moons? And you're really into, uh, smelling things? Like an unusual amount. You should try and cut that out. Plus you clawed the hell out of the Quaffle in that one match against Slytherin."
"I didn't think anyone noticed that," Derek said stiffly.
"Well, not really, no, but only because Finstock said it was faulty and pulled it from the game. Weirdly, I don't think he knows you're a werewolf, he's just..."
"Weird."
"Yep."
Derek scrubbed one hand over the back of his neck. "How long have you..."
Stiles shrugged. "I don't know, dude." The real answer was: way before we dated, because I'm creepy. Another deathbed confession. "Is that what you wanted to talk about?"
Derek shrugged. "I wanted to know if you'd come to my parents' house for Yule this year. And then I figured I should probably warn you about them, and -" He hesitated. "We don't really tell people. Not just anyone."
"So I'm special?" is what pops out of Stiles's mouth.
"So special," Derek says, and it's only low-level sarcastic.
Stiles bit on the inside of his cheeks to keep from beaming. "I don't know Derek, is there a Christmas tree, or are we just going to sit around the Yule log?"
"Invitation rescinded," Derek said dryly, and tackled Stiles to the couch.