Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I

As usual, Nathan was in his dorm room alone. The three other beds were empty, exactly like every other time he woke up in the morning, it was the curse of being a deep sleeper he supposed. Although because of that Nathan didn’t know any of his roommates. He either got to bed too late into the night, although sometimes he didn’t even make it to the dorm, instead going to the room of requirement so as not to wake the others. The others got up too early in the morning and were already gone when he decided to sleep in his dorm.

The hearth in the middle of the room was lit, one of the other fifth years must have lit it before they left the room. He supposed he was grateful, it fought off the chill of autumn and the cold of being underwater in the dungeon.

He was not ready for the morning. He had potions first thing then transfigurations straight after. Potions were fine, he understood adding certain ingredients together at certain times creates a potion, it’s like cooking in a way. But for transfigurations, he could not grasp the way one thing was supposed to change into another.

He sighed as he picked up his robe, the green accents matched his paisley vest. Nathan thought it was still too warm to put on his jacket and robe, but that could just be the heat exuding from the hearth.

Nathan glanced to the side of his bed where his owl was perched, she was a beautiful tawny owl that Sebastian had helped him pick out during their trip to Hogsmeade. That was nearly a month ago now, how time flies. Nathan had named her Gwendelin or Gwen for short, a beautiful name for a beautiful bird. He pet her gently, just under her chin, watching as her feathers puffed up at the action before heading to the Slytherin common room.

He had a pretty packed day for a Thursday but he guessed that was just for him to catch up with the rest of the fifth years. As he passed through the common room he took note of the towering glass windows and the small portion of the Black Lake he could see behind them. The seaweed swayed with the current and a small school of fish passed by causing a flurry of bubbles. There were still some first years with their noses pressed against the glass, believing Ominis’s word and keeping a lookout for any mermaids. He would never admit to it be sometimes, late at night when the common room was empty he would be sat next to the windows, watching out for mermaids and any other sea creatures.

The Heat from the fireplace was almost unbearable, but Nathan chalked it up to him running rather hot in the mornings. Thankfully whispers about him being the new fifth year had died down. Sure he had a certain flare for the dramatics but being the constant centre of attention was impossible. He was used to standing at the back, being somewhat invisible, but here he was called upon in almost every class to see what he had learnt and what he needed to improve on, he was sure the others were most likely getting sick of his voice. He was grateful that his teachers were just as concerned about his learning as he was for the upcoming O.W.Ls, but there had to be a better way to show it than putting him on the spot and showing off how new to the magical world he was.

As he exited the common room the whispers hit him like a brick wall. 

“Did you hear? Sallow and Gaunt are arguing in the great hall.”

“Fighting like an old married couple from what I heard.”

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose. It sounds like Sebastian had asked Ominis about the Scriptorium then. He should probably go and check on them, make sure neither had bitten the other's head off.

He made his way through the castle, getting lost more than once, not that he would ever admit it. He passed by a group of girls from all different houses but looked to be in their fourth year. Maybe, all he knew was that he did not have any classes with them, as he passed them they started whispering and giggling to one another, thinking he would be out of earshot.

Nathan finally found the Great Hall, only to be greeted by one of the suits of armour kicking apart the other, ending its attack by stomping on the other's breastplate and making its way back over to its podium. The dismembered suit of armour lay on the ground humming its merry tune in pain. He sidestepped the armour and brushed its wrist plate to the side with his foot to open the door.

He was suddenly assaulted by the amount of noise in the Hall on a Thursday morning, he wondered how anyone had the energy. And yet he could still hear Ominis and Sebastian arguing around the corner.

“Anything to do with the Dark Arts should be avoided. It’s too risky.” It was nice to know that Ominis thought the same as him. Although he was new to the whole magic thing he had read in a book about the three unforgivable curses and they sent a shiver down his spine.

“Anything to do with Salazar Slytherin is worth the risk.” Sebastian always had a retort ready.

“I can’t agree, and I’ll not say a word more. I’m sorry.” Nathan watched as Ominis rounded the corner and made his way out of the side entrance. He didn’t want his friend to think he was eavesdropping, but since practically the whole school was talking about them, he figured that he was safe. As he turned the corner he saw how frazzled Sebastian truly was. Was their little adventure in Feldcroft the cause of this? It looked like he hadn’t slept a wink last night.

“What were you and Ominis speaking about?” Nathan finally let himself be known. The brown-haired boy halted his pacing and quickly lifted his head to the other boy.

“He’s being ridiculous. Apparently, Salazar Slytherin has a secret Scriptorium here in Hogwarts,” ah, so it was the Scriptorium question, Nathan had guessed right, “Ominis swears it was used for the Dark Arts, so he wants nothing to do with it. I reminded him that Anne needs a cure. This ‘Scriptorium’ could hold the answers we need.” 

“Ominis is right. Meddling in the Dark Arts is dangerous.” Nathan replied. After all, they were called the Dark Arts for a reason.

“There’s more to Dark Magic than most people realise. The Gaunt’s know this better than most.” Sebastian took a moment to breathe and with a sudden realisation of what he just said, “Perhaps I’ve spoken out of turn. Omins’s family history is personal to him.” ‘Isn’t everyone’s family history?’ Nathan thought for just a moment. But he watched the brunette, how his jaw was slack and eyebrows furrowed like he wanted to say more. He decided to take the choice out of his hands.

“You do not have to tell me, I know family can be difficult.” 

“Really? If I were you I would be begging to know more.”

“It’s not that I’m not curious, I am, but I think I’d rather hear it from Ominis, you understand?”

“I do, and I respect that, you’ll learn more eventually I suppose. Until then I’ll try to see if I can convince Ominis to come around, keep an eye out for my owl.” What was with Sallow and trying to spill other's personal secrets? With that Sebastian walked off, leaving Nathan alone once again. He checked the pocket watch his brother had given him and found that he had less than five minutes to get to Potions, otherwise he’d be late. He sighed knowing he didn’t have the time to even grab a scrap piece of toast.

He made his way back out of the doors of the Great Hall and towards the floo fireplace. ‘At least he wasn’t going to be late’ he thought as his stomach grumbled.

II

Potions was Nathan’s favourite class, next to Care of Magical Beasts and Charms. Don’t get him wrong, he loved flying on his broom; he had acquired quite a nice one in his opinion, from Arn when he had rescued the Goblin’s carts, Arn told him that it was a Silver Arrow. But he did not fully enjoy flying class, with all its rules and restrictions, he wanted to show off all his tricks and learn more from Everett. It was pure agony and sucked all the joy out of flying.

But with Potions at least that was somewhat familiar. A bit like cooking. Not that Nathan had ever done any cooking, but his Mother would not allow that, cooking was a servant's job according to her. But from what little his Brother had taught him they were quite similar. It also helped that Professor Sharp was a strict but fair teacher.

That day they were learning to brew Draught of Peace. Professor Sharp had paired the class up to start brewing the Draught. Usually, Nathan worked with Garreth when they required pairs, but Sharp had chosen the pairs, something about not getting too comfortable with the same people. So, Nathan found himself standing next to Ominis, though he had nothing against the blonde they hadn’t truly spoken to since the whole fiasco with the Undercroft, which was a shame really, he thought he and Ominis would have gotten along with how they met in the common room.

“Alright, now that you all are set up, can any of you tell me what are the effects of the Draught of Peace?” When no one answered or volunteered themselves Sharp took that as an invitation to call on someone, “You’re all quiet, how about you Miss Sweeting?” The small Hufflepuff girl squeaked in surprise, not used to being called upon.

“Erm- It’s supposed to relieve anxiety?”

“Very good, five points, and do you know the adverse effects when you add too much of one ingredient?”

“No sir.”

“Anyone else? Master Sheppard perhaps you would like to enlighten us?” That started Nathan ever so slightly, not actually paying attention to the lesson instead watching Ominis’s quill write by itself. Maybe he could baffle the Potions Professor with bullshit since he most definitely couldn’t impress him with facts in this instance.

“Judging by the effects the draught is supposed to have when brewed correctly, I reckon that too much of an ingredient can cause the drinker to relax too much, perhaps sending them into a deep sleep that could either be long or maybe irreversible.” Sharp took a moment to process what the black-haired boy had just said.

“Did you just make that up on the spot?” Sharp looked at him suspiciously, squinting his eyes and looking the boy up and down.

“Yes sir.” 

“Somehow that is correct. Five points to Slytherin.”

The next fifteen minutes went a lot smoother with Professor Sharp listing the ingredients used in the draught, the effects each ingredient has and its purpose in the draught. Of course, Nathan wrote down every word the professor spoke like it was gospel. When he had time he would undoubtedly try to recreate the draught in the room of requirement, maybe that way he would finally have a good night's rest instead of the broken and uneasy sleep he had gotten so far.

Once the professor had finished his lecture he instructed his student to start. As he turned to his station he heard the blonde boy beside him clear his throat to catch Nathan’s attention.

“Did you really make up that answer?” Ominous asked as he picked up the moonstone to crush with the pestle and mortar.

“I mean yeah, an educated guess at that but thoroughly fabricated, I did not expect it to be right.”

“Oh?” Nathan watched as he added the powdered moonstone, stopping the other when the concoction turned a vibrant shade of green, he then picked up the wooden spoon and began to stir.

“Well, when you relax after a long time of being stressed you feel exhausted and like you could sleep for a week right?” He saw the other boy nod out of the corner of his eye before he continued, “If the draught reduces your anxiety, which is only caused when your brain thinks your body is in danger, it’s pretty much redirecting those signals your brain is sending out making you think you're not in danger and reducing your stress. But too much of one ingredient could send out those signals too quickly, so you could go from the height of your anxiety to nothing at all, shocking the body and making you sleep, essentially putting you in a coma that could be irreversible despite any outside stimuli.” Nathan had no idea that he hadn’t only captured Ominis’s interest in the subject, he was too busy stirring the pot. As the mixture turned a deep blue he stopped his stirring and put the cauldron on to simmer.

“You seem to know a bit about brain activity,” Ominis remarked as he got the syrup of hellebore ready.

“Ah, not much more than that really, just a small part of what my tutors taught me. It’s ready for the hellebore.” Without a second thought, he added the syrup, Nathan only stopped him when the liquid turned turquoise and he put it back on the simmer.

“Tutors?” Despite the one-word question, he could tell that the blonde boy was genuinely interested in what he had to say. It also didn’t hurt that Nathan loved to talk and hated uneasy silence.

“I was somewhat homeschooled before all of this, my family made sure I had the best tutors in all subjects that London had to offer.” Once the draught turned a rich purple he took the stewed mandrake, shaken courtesy of Ominis and added it to the mix until it turned, in Nathan’s opinion, a nasty shade of red that he couldn't help but grimace at. He then began to stir once again.

“I,” the blonde began. Nathan lifted his eyes away from the draught to the other boy. Ominis’s eyebrows were scrunched up with a pensive look on his face like he was trying to find the right words. “I wanted to apologise for the other day.” 

“Oh?” This time it was his turn for one-word questions.

“Yes, my anger was misplaced, I was not entirely mad at you, more at Sebastian and his lack of decorum and respect. I should not have yelled at you, I’m sorry.” Ominis was apologising a lot that day.

“Honestly, it’s no big deal, really, you don’t need to apologise. I understand, I would have been the same if someone that I had met maybe once had invaded my space, though Sebastian should have known better.” 

“Yes he should have and we’ve had a long discussion about that.” Once the potion had turned a bright orange that reminded him of what his brother had called a satsuma that he had brought back after his many travels, Nathan added more of the stewed mandrake and waited for it to turn yellow.  “You’re also a terrible liar.” He winced at that, Ominis was brutal, he didn’t need to call him out like this.

“So you picked up on that?” This time the blonde picked up the spoon, trusting the new fifth year to alert him when the mixture returned to the vivid green.

“Hard not to when you could barely get your words out in one sentence.” Brutal.

“That’s fair, I’ve never been very good at fibbing, the nannies always knew when I did something that I wasn’t supposed to when I was young. It’s green.” Ominis took the spoon out and added more stewed mandrake only stopping when Nathan told it it had changed colour, then letting the pot simmer waiting for the rich purple to return. “No hard feelings then?” Nathan asked the other, who he had just noticed had a constellation of beauty marks on his face, he briefly wondered if they were anywhere else on the blonde but quickly shut down that train of thought.

“No hard feelings.” Once the colour had turned he instructed Ominis to add the powdered unicorn horn, halting him when the mixture turned a lovely pastel pink. He picked up the wooden spoon to stir once again, in truth it was a good upper arm workout. Once it had turned to the horrid shade of red Nathan put it on to simmer again.

“You seem determined to get this draught right, have you got any anxieties you wish to quell?” The blonde asked curious about the new boy.

“You could say that, though truthfully I have not been sleeping well.” Once the purple returned he added more powdered moonstone until the pastel pink reappeared.

“The dragon and troll attack playing on your mind.” Nathan sucked in a breath, he had hit the nail on the head. It was an innocent question filled with gentle concern, but the blackette didn’t know how to answer without revealing some of his heaviest secrets. “You do not have to answer-”

“No, no, you’re right in a way, but there’s more to it that’s hard to explain.” Through the simmering, the concoction turns orange. Ominis adds the final ingredient of powdered porcupine quills, the draught looks to settle and then turn a calm white. “Looks like we did it.” With that Professor Sharp suddenly appears next to the pot, scrutinising it with his gaze. 

“Well done, correct on your first attempt, you’ve both followed the instructions well. Ten points to Slytherin.” Nathan was pleased with himself, a daft grin settled on his face, thriving under the praise. He was pulled out of his thoughts when the cauldron on the next table exploded. “Weasley. What did you add this time?”

Garreth’s and Poppy’s draught was ruined, both were expected to clean up not just their potion, but to return after classes had finished and help clean the rest of the cauldrons. Nathan almost felt bad for them, almost, at least it wasn’t him this time.

III

It was halfway through Transfigurations that Nathan realised that he might be hopeless at the subjects. That day they were supposed to be changing a cat into a cauldron, it suddenly dawned on him why there were so many cats on the grounds.

Professor Weasley was a patient woman, but even he could see the frustration of his lack of progress in her class.

Nathan was stood at his desk, the cauldron in front of him at least had the shape of a cauldron, despite the pointed ears, the tail and he was pretty sure a cauldron wasn’t supposed to have fur.

“Reparifage.” He cast his wand over the cauldron in a smooth motion. At least he could get that spell right. With a white glow, the cauldron turned back into the orange tabby cat it originally was. “Sorry my friend,” he gently stroked the cat's back, “I do not mean to cause you any distress.”

“Master Sheppard, a moment if you will.” Professor Weasley called from the front of the classroom. She had a keen eye on him during his spell work. Nathan gave the tabby one last stroke before he made his way over to his teacher.

“Yes, Professor?”

“I’ve noticed you’ve had some trouble grasping Felifors.”

“It’s all transfiguration spells really Professor.” The black-haired boy replied, one hand reaching up to brush his fluffy hair back away from his face so that it would no longer tickle his nose.

“I see, I would like to assign you a tutor then,” she took a moment to scan the class, “there Leander Pewett, he is exceptional in this class,” Nathan felt himself stiffen up, he and Leander did not get along so well, at least not since he had beaten the ginger in Crossed Wands and Summoners Court, “or there’s Sebastian Sallow, that may make it easier since you’re from the same house and are already friends.” 

“That would be great Professor, thank you, I think I would like for Sebastian to tutor me if you don’t mind.” 

“Of course,” She halted the conversation for a moment to call over the other Slytherin. 

“Yes, Professor Weasley?” Sebastian strolled over to them, already having heard the conversation and knowing what their teacher would ask.

“Would you mind tutoring Master Sheppard here in Transfigurations, it seems that he is struggling to get a handle on the subject.”

“In other words, I am utterly failing and I desperately need your help,” Nathan added, he fluttered his eyelashes at the boy to make it look pleading.

“Quite.” A bemused smile made its way onto the Professor's face.

“Of course,” Sebastian replied, “I’ll have Nathan here become a Transfigurations Master in no time.”

“I may just hold you to that Master Sallow. Class dismissed.” She called out to the rest of the room, all of them quickly packing up and leaving, ready for lunch to start.

“Care to join me for some lunch?” The brunette asked as he went to collect his belongings.

“That would be nice, thank you.” 

IV

The Great Hall, like that morning, was loud. Nathan didn’t particularly like loud places or crowded rooms. He had grown up in the quiet stillness of a large house with not enough people in it.

“This is great timing actually.” Sebastian and Nathan sat opposite one another in the middle of the Slytherin table, where the fifth year’s usually sat. 

“Oh really? How come?” The food in front of them was near enough mouth-watering. With having missed breakfast that morning and dinner the previous night, due to adventuring, he was near famished, he could faintly hear his stomach rumbling. Although in the back of his mind, he could hear his mother’s voice telling him not to gorge himself, that he still needed to watch his figure, nobody would want a fat husband and he had to keep the family name proud. He hesitated with his hand hovering over the sandwiches.

“I was just about to send you my owl,” If the brown-haired boy noticed his hesitancy he didn’t mention it, instead he reached for a ham sandwich himself causing Nathan to snap out of his trance and grab half a sandwich and an apple, at least he was being healthy, he told himself. “I tried pressing Ominis again about the Scriptorium, but it was in vain.”

“Oh that’s a shame, what did he say?” He spoke absentmindedly as he took a bite of his apple.

“I told him none of us will be able to avoid Dark Magic forever. So the more that we know about Salazar Slytherin and the Dark Arts the better prepared we’ll be. Unfortunately, only a Gaunt knows the location of the Scriptorium’s entrance and Ominis won’t tell me.” Nathan was tearing pieces of his sandwich off and delicately eating that way, trying not to look like a pig in front of his new friend. But that was the complete opposite of the freckled youth across from him, he obviously had no qualms about how Nathan would perceive him as he just about inhaled his food and moved on to some Vanilla Slices.

“Maybe I could have a chat with him?”

“You?” Ouch, that definitely didn’t hurt his feelings, “I supposed it’s worth a try, but don’t get your hopes up. Ominis is annoyingly stubborn. Nothing new. I know where he is-” Nathan quickly cut the other boy off as he looked like he was about to get up, too eager to get this all sorted.

“Hold on, we have Herbology very soon, Ominis isn’t going anywhere.” Nathan daren’t touch any of the sweet confectionery despite how tempting it looked.

“You have a point. He’s sulking outside the common room, I’ll take you after class.” He decided as he licked the custard off his fingers. 

Both of them had finished their lunched and had gotten up from the table. Their plate soon disappeared, probably to the kitchens below for one of the house elves to clean up. Nathan was banned from that part of the kitchen after he had toppled over one of the rather large pile of plates, after that the elves often herded him away from the washing area. Despite that though he was often greeted with open arms and a warm meal every time he visited after one of his late-night adventures when he hadn’t managed to grab a meal and didn’t want to go to bed hungry once again.

V

Herbology was one of their more relaxed classes. Nathan checked up on his dittany whilst recording its growth and watering cycle. He also took note of the different uses that the plant had different methods to use it, such as crushing it in a pestle and mortar or chopping it finely, even using it as a whole. If he had to give a rough estimate he would say it would take another few weeks before the plant had fully grown and he was able to harvest anything. Although the plants in the room of requirement were already harvestable, probably because he had used enhanced fertiliser. It would be interesting to see how long it would take without the enhancer and compare the two.

He was so enthralled with his recordings that he didn’t notice their Herbology teacher standing next to him taking meticulous notes.

“Those are some very detailed notes,” her sudden voice caused him to jolt, “I look forward to reading your essay.” He quickly lifted his head and straightened his back.

“Thank you, Professor.” She smiled gently at him. She had yet to see the boy come out of his shell but she suspected that she was close to it.

“May I ask how your extra assignments are coming along?”

“I believe I’m making good time with them Professor, I’ve only got a few more left to complete.” Nathan was proud of that fact, he had taken all of his extra assignments seriously wanting to learn as much as he could with his newfound freedom.

“Oh good, I do look forward to reading the essays.” His eyebrows scrunched up and his bottom lip pursed, he was completely confused.

“Essays Professor?” This caused the red-haired Professor to chuckle.

“Yes, I’m particularly looking forward to reading how you could use Mandrakes for defensive purposes,” Nathan give her a small, slow laugh which she narrowed her eyes at, “you wouldn’t think I’d send a new student into a dangerous situation to test out the uses of those plants, would you?”

“I may need more time for those essays Professor.”

“Oh, I thought you said that you were nearly done with them.” 

“About that,” she gave the black-haired boy a curious look whilst she raised a single eyebrow. “I may have stumbled into a mongrel den the other day, and well, the mandrakes were very effective against them.” A look of horror crossed her face. “I may have taken the extra assignments too literally, I didn’t realise you meant for me to write essays.” He heard sniggering behind him, he already knew who was laughing at his dumbassary.

“Oh-” She could barely get her words, “Oh good heavens, no, oh honey, no, are you alright? Do you need to go to the infirmary?” She had settled on worry.

“Oh no, Professor, I’m fine, really.” He tried to reassure her, though she didn’t look too convinced.

“If that’s the case then, for the assignments that you’ve already ‘done’ you can write about your experience using those plants, but for the ones that you have left, please just write the essays.”

“Yes, Professor.” Professor Garlick quickly dismissed the class after that and Nathan could not ignore Sebastian trying to contain his howling laughter. 

“So, extra assignments?”

“Oh shut it,” Nathan spoke with a bite in his voice, in no mood to be teased. He used his slightly longer legs to his advantage and strode out of the greenhouses, the freckled teen having to jog to keep up with him.

“Alright, alright, I’m only jesting.” The black-haired teen did slow down for the other boy, “Thank you.” He already felt like an idiot, he didn’t need Sebastian to rub it in. He sent a glare at the boy and he finally backed down with his hands up in surrender.

“Let’s go meet Ominis.”

Chapter Text

I

Ominis was exactly where Sebastian Said he would be. Not right outside the Common Room but a few hallways off to the side. The brunette quickly wished him luck before hiding behind one of the unlit braziers, keeping an eye on their interaction. 

Nathan approached the blonde with loud footsteps, wanting him to know that he was there. Ominous lifted his head at the sound, quickly recognising it as the footfalls of the new fifth year.

“What are you doing here?” The blonde had stopped his pacing as he turned toward Nathan. The teen looked stressed with permanent creases in his brow and a deepening frown, it looked like he was biting the bottom of his lip as well as it was slightly red and swollen, it looked sore.

“Hello Ominis,” the black-haired teen kept his voice steady and calm, not wanting the other to know that he could openly see his distress if he didn't want to draw attention to it, Ominous would tell him if he wanted Nathan to know, “Do you have a moment?”

“What is it?” He all but snapped, but there was a hit of worry in his tone like he thought that the other was in some sort of trouble, “what have you and Sebastian been up to now?” ‘That’s why’ as Nathan thought back he and Sebastian was prone to finding trouble.

“Are you alright? You seem a little stressed.” He asked, hoping the blonde was comfortable enough to confide in him, especially after the progress they made in potions earlier that day.

“I’m fine.” The teen sounded definite but he could see him falter to some extent. “It’s just-” he rubbed his forehead, crying to iron out the crease with his fingers, “Sebastian’s been pestering me lately about something and I’m frustrated with him.” He had given Nathan the perfect opportunity.

“He’s not still going on about that ‘Scriptorium’ is he?”

“He told you about that?” The blonde’s voice rose in volume, both shocked and mad at his best friend, “Of course he told you that, you two seem to be joined at the hip these last few weeks.”

“We were talking about the Hogwarts founders and he mentioned it, wouldn’t say much more though.” He hadn’t wanted to anger the other, maybe if he retreats a little in the conversation. He had never been a good conversationalist, he usually left the talking to his brother, not his eldest brother, he was an uptight snob when it came to talking to anyone. His other brother, the middle child, had the gift of the gab, he could get anyone to open up. While Nathan was just an awkward mess most of the time, although he had got better in the last few months.

“Yes. Well, he seems to think it contains the answers to saving Anne. I think It’s likely full of Dark Magic that is better left untouched.”

“Wait. You’ve never been inside?”

“Of course not!” He exclaimed as he began to pace again, absolutely appalled that the black-haired boy would ever think he would ever want to step foot in there. “I only know about it because of my favourite aunt - Noctua.” Nathan kept silent, suspecting this would be something the blonde would want to get off his chest without any judgment, “she thought like I do. Didn’t agree with the family on the use of Dark Magic. In fact, she’d hoped to convince my family that there was more to Salazar Slytherin than worshipping pure-blood status. She heard of this ‘Scriptorium’ and thought its contents might shed some light on him. She even found the entrance - in this very corridor. She wrote regularly to my father about her efforts to gain access and then she simply vanished. No one else ever tried to enter.” He stopped his pacing and looked directly at Nathan, ‘my gosh his eyes are beautiful, not the time’ he thought.

“I’m sorry about your aunt, but don’t you want to find out what happened to her?” The devil’s advocate finally came out.

“Aunt Noctua went down this path with good intentions and lost her life. I don’t want the same to happen again.” Ominis argued back.

“You don’t know that history will repeat itself. Besides you said your aunt thought like you. This could honour her memory - get you answers about Slytherin and Sebastian's answers for Anne. You aren’t pursuing this alone, we could do it together.”

“And what would you be getting out of this? Surely you want something.” He truly was trying to find any way out of it.

“I would be helping my friends, that’s enough for me.” The blonde took a moment to genuinely think about what the other had said, then sighed when he made a decision.

“I see what you’ve done here. And I confess, you’ve convinced me. I didn’t think it possible. Very well. I shall tell you what I know - fetch Sebastian from behind the brazier. I’ll wait.” Nathan beamed, a daft grin stretched across his face.

“Thank you Ominis, I shan’t be a moment.” The blonde shook his head, smiling at the gratitude in the other’s voice.

“I hope that I - we don’t regret this.”

“Sebastian - Over here.” The freckled teen peered from behind the ornate brazier, figuring it was safe he made his way other to the other two Slytherins.

“These braziers grant access to the Scriptorium,” Ominis mumbled as Sebastian looked around the corridor.

“Now you’ll share? You wouldn’t tell me when I practically begged.” 

“It wasn’t you who told me what I needed to hear.” Ominis huffed as he turned back to Nathan, “Opening the entrance has something to do with threes.”

“Well - three heads are better than one.”

“It’s two heads are better than one.”

“And by that logic three is better than two. Simple mathematics Ominis.”

Nathan left them to argue about numbers, he rolled his eyes as he gazed around the corridor his eyes narrowed at the three unlit braziers. He looked back at his friends about to mention it to them but noticed they were still in a heated battle of wits. 

‘They really do bicker like an old married couple.’ He thought as he cast confringo. The slight explosion startled the arguing boys.

“What in the name of Merlin are you doing?” Ominis asked as he covered his ears. Nate did feel slightly bad about that.

“Lighting the braziers.” He spoke like it was the simplest thing to understand. He cast the blasting spell twice more when he heard the sound of stone grinding on stone.

“Wait - something’s happening,” Sebastian exclaimed as he moved away from the wall.

In the arch stone wall behind Ominis, a dark pathway opened up. Nathan made his way over, grimacing at the sight of cobwebs.

“That’s a lot of stairs.” He remarked as he couldn’t see the end of the spiral.

“I hope we’re ready for this.” The blonde teen spoke, his voice uneasy and shaking. The new fifth-year worried that he had pushed the boy too far.

II

“Dark, ominous corridors. My favourite.” Sebastian tried to lighten the sullen mood as they descended the unlit spiral staircase.

“No comment.” Ominis was not amused. The tan teen quietly cast Lumos as the other two bickered, he had quickly learnt to tune them out.

“Come on, that was a good one.” There was the sound of stone grating on stone again, he ran back to the stairs only to find it completely blocked off. “Looks like a locked door, we may want to look around.” Sebastian sounded way too calm for the situation they had found themselves in.

Out of nervousness, Nathan ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling the tufts and then making sure the fluffy locks fell so they were hiding his right eye. It was a nervous habit he had gained as an early teen, it didn’t help that he was told by the majority of his family that he had to hide his right eye, or more so the skin around it. He took a deep breath and walked back into the stone room. He noticed a bit of parchment in a small alcove that was large enough to fit a candelabra.

“A journal entry,” he took a moment to scan the words, eyes widening at the somewhat familiar name that had signed it, “signed by Noctua Gaunt.”

“Gaunt? Ominis - your family was here.”

“I know, she was my aunt.” Did Nathan know something about Ominis that Sebastian did not? He grinned at the thought. He made his way over to Sebastian, who was examining an ornate metal door, he tripped over some loose stones and yelped as he tumbled down.

“Are you alright?” The blonde was quick to his side, obviously on edge from being locked in that room.

“I’m fine, just tripped - huh.” He glanced at the stones, he noticed there seemed to be part of an image etched in them like a broken jigsaw.

“What is it?” Ominis asked as he helped Nathan up off the ground.

“These stones - they look like they should fit together.” He quickly picked his wand up from where he dropped it on the ground and cast repairo on the stones. They began joining back together, like time was reversing on the stone and remade a stone wall carving in the shape of a man holding a snake.

“That must be the voice I hear,” Ominis remarked once the wall carving was fixed, “the voice is ancient - sinister.”

“You hear a voice?” The tan teen asked worried for his friend.

“It started when you repaired that relief. I hear a whisper saying ‘Speak to me’.” He took a moment to take in a deep breath, regaining his composure, “I’m a Parselmouth - I can hear and speak to snakes. Nearly all known Parselmouths are descendants from Salazar Slytherin.”

“I’d like to be able to talk to snakes, though I think I’ve been doing that recently.” Nathan snidely commented earning a chuckle from the blonde.

“You might not want the ability to speak Parceltongue. It’s often associated with Dark Wizards. I hadn’t spoken it in ages, but I’d wager if I speak it now, the door will open. I’m hoping you’re having second thoughts.”

“Believe me, I am having thoughts - but I’m still convinced we should go on ahead.”

“It’s ironic. When I left home I vowed to leave the Dark Arts behind. And yet, here I am. Stand back.” He took a few steps away from the other while Ominis stood in front of the ornate metal door. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” It was the most interesting sound to hear coming from another human mouth, the hissing, the rolling of the tongue, it was astounding. 

The two entwined snakes on the door glowed as they travelled upwards, unravelling themselves to allow access through the door.

“It worked! Ominis, you possess a rare ability indeed.” Nathan couldn’t help but stare in awe at the other boy, who had a slight dusting of pink on his cheeks.

“Between the two of you, I’m starting to feel left out.” Sebastian piped up. Nathan jolted, he had honestly forgotten that he was there. He took a moment to process what he had offhandedly said, he sent a glare the freckled boy’s way. He never regretted telling Sebastian about his not-so-little secret more than in that moment.

“Between the two of us?” Ominis asked.

“I - Never mind.” It looked like Sebastian caught Nathan’s glare and decided it was best to shut his mouth.

“That’s - that’s something I’ll explain another time.” He’ll spill his own secrets thank you very much.

“Alright.” The three of them pressed forward only for them to come face to face with a metal grate. There was also another alcove but this one seemed to have a statue of a coiled snake placed inside.

“There’s no clear way forward.” Even Sebastian seemed frustrated with the seemingly never-ending maze.

“Like a maze. Salazar Slytherin most likely wanted this to be difficult to solve.” Ominis commented on his ancestor. The metal door they came through clanked and groaned as it shut itself.

“The door we came from - it closed, and there’s more than one gate a head.” As Nathan moved further in he came to a gate that was half lifted. He ducked to go underneath, the further into the room he got the louder the hissing and whisper became, he could hear them in the corridor, but in there it sounded like it was coming from the walls themself. It unnerved him and to calm himself he brushed his fingers through his hair. He pressed forward, setting his sights on the unlit torch in the corner of the room.

“Incendio.” He muttered lighting the torch and letting it chase away the unsettling darkness. Next to the torch was another coiled snake statue. Nathan peered at it curiously, wondering how it fits in with the maze. He took a closer look and there were symbols on the two dials that made up the base. He daren’t touch it, not trusting that it wouldn’t hurt him in some way once he laid his fingers on it. He went back under the gate into the hallway. He noticed another gate that was fully closed off from the hallway he was in.

The gate was on the left side of the wall, he noticed a diamond shape in the middle of the metal with two symbols etched into it. Symbols that looked the same as the ones on the snake’s dials. The top symbol looked a tad bit like a cat with no head, but part of it was scrubbed out so he couldn’t be too sure. And the bottom one looked like an unfinished square that was turning into a triangle.

With the new information, he ran back to the room, straight to the snake’s dials. He began to turn the bottom to the symbol he was sure of, as the dial moved the snake uncoiled itself, raised and pulled itself back, waiting to strike.

“The dial requires focus.” He mumbled to himself.

“Aunt Noctua said the same. It may take practice to solve it.” Ominis spoke up. Nathan struggled to find the symbol of the failed cat on the top dial, the longer he took the louder the hissing and whispers in the walls got. 

It seemed like his time was up. The snake lurched forward and lashed at his cheek. Nathan yelped in pain and stumbled back upon the impact.

“Nathan!” He heard both boys yell. The clanking of metal was the only indication that one of them was crawling their way over to him. He held his cheek, in utter disbelief.

“I’m fine, just didn’t expect that snake to strike.” He yelled back trying to reassure the boys. Suddenly his vision was filled with soft brown hair and warm brown eyes. Sebastian’s fingers hovered over his hand covering his cheek almost like he was asking for permission.

“Let me see?” It was a good thing it was dark. Nathan’s eyes were wide, not expecting the close proximity of the brunette and his uninjured cheek was burning up. He quickly obliged to the other’s request, he turned his head to the side and dropped his hand.

“I’m fine, really, just a shock.” The black-haired teen felt Sebastian’s warm fingers dust over his cheekbones, he winced when he went a bit too close to the bite but did not pull away.

“Merlin! You’re bleeding.” The brunette quickly searched the pockets of his robes.

“Really, it’s-”

“If you say fine one more time I’ll smack you upside the head.” He threatened and Nathan clamped his mouth shut.

“Here.” The gentle voice from next to them caused both of them to jump. Nate had no idea what the blonde had made his way over to them. He was holding out a plain white handkerchief.

“Ah, just what I was looking for, thank you.” He eagerly took the hankey and gently placed it against Nathan’s cheek.

“There was no need to ruin a perfectly good handkerchief.” He huffed, exasperated at the two older Slytherins. He took over, holding the hankey to his cheek himself.

“It’s not ruined, it’s being used for its purpose. Now - are you alright? Can you stand?” Ominis’s voice was like honey, gentle but filled with worry.

“I’m alright,” He found himself nodding, “I can stand.” The freckled teen finally moved away, he pulled himself up and offered his hand out for the tan teen to take. Nathan pulled the hankey way feeling his blood grow tacky around the puncture. He took the brunette’s hand and allowed the other to help pull him up.

“Thank you, both of you. I swear I’ll wash this before I return it.” 

“Keep it, please, it is good to have a spare if you’re ever in situations such as this one.” Nate nodded and turned back to the snake dial.

“I think I figured out how those work. On each gate there’s two symbols, on the dials there’s a choice of multiple symbols, I think we have to match them up to find our way out of here.” 

“That’s brilliant.” Sebastian patted him on the arm as he looked closer at the snake.

“Although, I believe there is a time limit, I took too long and, well, you saw what happened.” At his words the brunette took a large step back, deciding to admire from afar.

“What are the marks for this one?” He asked as he studied the dials.

“The bottom one is a three-sided square with a triangle inside - and the top one sort of looks like a cat with no head.” He earnt a raised eyebrow from the blonde at that description. The sounds of the dials turning again caught both of their attention.

“Sebastian - What are you doing?” Nathan spoke at a rushed pace, he panicked for the other boy, not wanting him to be harmed as well.

“Changing the symbols - I trust your judgment.” He felt a rush of heat climb up to his ears. Ominis grasped his hand in anticipation, fearing the worst as his best friend put himself in danger. Nathan squeezed his hand hoping that it would reassure the blonde. Sebastian finished turning the top dial just as the snake pulled back to strike. At the correct sequence, the snake coiled back and settled itself. “I think that did it.” 

Metal clanking came from the hallway. The sounds of a new gate opening. Sebastian and Nathan exchanged a glance, which seemed like all they needed for a plan to form. Nathan ran from room to room where the snake dials were located, while Sebastian called out the corresponding symbols. If he so happened to find another of Noctua’s journal entrees he tucked it away in the inner pocket of his school robe, he had planned to give the to Ominis once they were out of there.

Finally - the last gate opened.

III

“Seems Slytherin liked to play games,” Ominis commented as they stood outside the last room.

“Must run in the family.” Sebastian whipped back.

“Look in a mirror, Sebastian.” Nate bit back a laugh at Ominis’s sarcastic tone.

There was a long corridor through the last gate, with a black sealed door in the shape of an arch at the end of it.

“I spotted something ahead, looks troubling.”

“This whole place is troubling, but, for my aunt’s sake, we cannot stop now.”

Once the three of them entered the corridor, the torches that lined the walls lit by themselves. The whispering from the walls grew louder, to the point that Nathan couldn’t hear anything else around him. The air grew heavy and thick, he struggled to suck in a single breath. He felt unable to move like the immobulus charm was cast upon him.

“Nathan?” Ominis questioned as he noticed his friend wasn’t moving, as he got closer he could hear the other’s wheezing breaths. He placed a hand on his shoulder and worried about how stiff the boy was under his touch. “Nathan?” He asked again but still received no reply. Ominis started to panic, “Sebastian, there’s something wrong.” Sebastian was quick to abandon his examination of the corridor and rush over to his friends.

“He’s hexed.” He noticed once he took a good look at the tan teen. Around the rim of his left eye, since he always had the right eye covered, was bright red and unblinking even when he snapped his finger in front of his face. He was stock still and breaths were coming in at uneven paces.

“Nathan? Can you hear me?” When Sebastian received no answer he pulled out his wand in a rush. “Finite Incantatem.” He called out as the blue light rushed towards the new fifth year. Nate swiftly drew in a breath and sagged forward. “You alright, mate?” The brunette asked as the other regained control of his own body.

“Yeah - yes, thank you.” He took a moment to straighten himself, “what was that?” 

“A Hex, and a nasty one at that.”

“Salazar Slytherin probably used it to make sure only pure-blooded wizards could enter,” Ominis explained.

 “Let’s - let’s get out of here, please.” The three of them made their way towards the black door. Upon closer inspection, the door was moving, like it was made of liquid. An image of a horrified woman graced the door and the word Crucio was carved into the floor. But Nate’s eyes pulled his attention to the pile of bones to the right of the door, a page of parchment next to them. He picked up the parchment. “Ominis. A skeleton. And Noctua’s last journal entry. She mentions being trapped here - blocked by an unforgivable curse.” 

“This is where she died. This is where we’ll die. I shouldn’t have listened to either of you.”

“Ominis, I’m truly sorry about you aunt. But, I know what to do. It’s going to be difficult.” Sebastian interrupted.

“You know what to do?” Nathan asked, intrigued by where this was going.

“Tortured faces on the door and Crucio is etched into the stone. My guess is if we cast the Cruciatus Curse, the door will open. That’s why Noctua died. She had no one to cast the curse on. Ominis has the most experience with this. He should cast it. You seem to be in Ominis’s favour - will you ask him about this?”

“He does seem a bit cross with you,” he sighed as he ran a hand down his face, “I’ll speak with him.”

“Good, work your magic - so to speak.” 

“All of this could have been avoided.” Ominis was pacing, he sounded as if he was on the verge of tears.

“Ominis, I hadn’t imagined we’d end up trapped like this.”

“Salazar Slytherin did. He’s to blame for many unimaginable things. I overheard you and Sebastian, and I won’t do it. The Cruciatus Curse is pure torture, I would know.”

“You would know?”

“I’m surprised Sebastian hasn’t told you. My family has no qualms about casting the curse on muggles as if it were a sport. The screams - Oh the screams were horrific. The first time I was asked to cast it, I refused - I couldn’t do it. As punishment, my family cast it on me - It was the worse pain imaginable - so when they asked me to cast it again, I did. I was only a child - but the pain I had caused, I can never forgive myself.”

“Ominis, I’m so sorry - that sounds horrifying. But you were a child and by the sounds of it, you had no choice. But there’s one thing that sets you apart from your family.”

“That I could not see the pain I had caused.” The blonde scoffed.

“No. You regret it. If your family cast the curse like it was a sport, I see no remorse there, and here you are still feeling guilty about it years ahead.”

“I’m as guilty as the worst of my family. Unforgivable Cursed won’t work unless you really mean them. I had to want to cause pain. And for that, I shall never forgive myself. That spell’s the reason I have no family left. You and Sebastian will need to sort out another solution.” He went back to pacing, “If you cast Crucio, you will regret it forever.” Nathan didn’t doubt that. There was something about that Dark Arts that was haunting, it niggled at the back of his mind like a forgotten dream He made his way back over to Sebastian, and a new wave of hopelessness washed over him.

“What do we do now? Ominis is not going to cast the Cruciatus Curse again.”

“Ridiculous. As if dying here is a better option than casting a damned spell.”

“I don’t blame him,” Nathan cut off the brunette. “And judging by what Ominis told me, once was enough.” Sebastian sighed.

“It’s up to us. I can teach you Crucio or I can cast it on you.” The ravenette fumed. Sebastian know how to cast that damned curse that whole time but was hell bend on Ominis reliving his trauma.

“Wait-” he held his tongue, “you didn’t say you knew how to cast Crucio.”

“Because I’m not sure I do. Ominis knows that yet he’s left us no choice - I don’t yearn to follow in Noctua Gaunt’s footsteps. I think I can cast it if I had to.”

“I don’t want to learn such a spell. You’ll need to cast it on me.” 

“I shan’t forget this.” Nathan took a deep breath and both boys took a few steps away from each other. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Sebastian’s wand glowed red.

“Crucio.” Red lightning shot out from his wand and went straight into Nathan’s chest.

Ominis was right, the pain was excruciating. His bones felt like they were twisting and rearranging themselves, his chest felt like it was caving in and expanding too far at the same time, and every inch of his skin felt like hot pokers were being dragged across him. He couldn’t continue to stand, his knees buckled sending him to the ground. He gripped his stomach, not that it was going to help, his forehead was resting on the dusty stone floor. His head felt like it was overfilled with cotton and it was trying to burst out of his ears. Screams were ripped out of his throat. 

Sebastian rushed to his side, feeling instant guilt for causing such pain. Ominis stood still in shock eyes wide and unmoving. Nathan’s screams had sent him back to his childhood, it was an iron grip that he could not shake off. He wanted to go over and help in some way, but he was rooted to the ground.

Sebastian gathered Nathan up in his arms, the raven’s head no longer resting on the filthy ground. He rocked both of them back and forth, hoping the small gesture of comfort would help. Eventually, his screams subsided, and the intense pains were fading but were quickly followed by aches and muscle spasms. Now that silence surrounded them, Ominis made his way over, slowly and unsure, he joined them on the ground.

“Is it always like this?” The brunette asked.

“Yes - yes, it is.” The blonde replied.

Nathan’s forehead had grown sweaty, from the excursion of running around and the pain, and his hair had begun to stick to his skin. Not wanting the fluffy lock to irritate his friend any further, Sebastian brushed the tufts out of both of his eyes, he gasped at what was uncovered.

“What is it?” The blonde asked upon hearing the gasp, fearing for the worse.

“Nathan- he, he has a large scar covering his eye.”

“Is that all?”

“I just - he always has that eye covered.”

“And now you know why.”

“But its-”

“Stop being nosy - Nathan will tell us if he wants us to know.” Ominis cuts in. His friend really was too nosy for his own good, always wanting to know other people's business.

A soft groan caught both of their attention.

“You back with us?” Sebastian asked the teen in his arms.

“I think so.” He moaned as he tried to sit up. With Sebastian’s help, he rested against the cool stone. The liquid door next to them melted away, revealing a room that looked like a study.

“Are you alright?” The blonde asked.

“That pain - it was excruciating. But I’ll survive. Let’s keep moving.”

“We made it. We found Salazar Slytherin’s Scriptorium.” Sebastian peered into the room in awe. He quickly got up, briefly forgetting about his friends and entered the study.

IV

The study was completely made of stone, it looked very much like the headmaster’s office with a table in the middle of the lower floor and two staircases on either side heading to the upper level. Above the table was a giant statue of Salazar Slytherin’s face with snakes coming out in every direction behind him.

Sebastian was already exploring the upper level of the room, looking through anything he thought looked remotely interesting. He stayed away from the flagon, who knows how long that had been there.

Nathan placed his hand flat against the wall and used that to try and get up. He felt a slender hand on his shoulder, Ominis was already standing up and helped steady his ascent.

“Here.” Once Nathan was standing, he used the wall for support, the blonde offered his arm.

“Thank you.” The blonde pulled the other’s arm over his should so that he took most of the younger teen’s weight as they walked.

“I can’t believe we're here.” The taller teen spoke with a thankful tone in his voice, now that there was a chance for them to escape with their lives. He led the tan teen to an armchair next to one of the golden floor-length candelabras. “Is this alright? I just thought you could rest here and I’ll try and find us a way out, but if you-” 

“Ominis, stop fretting so much - I’ll catch my breath here. I trust you’ll find us a way out.” The dark-haired teen interrupted him.

“Very well.” Ominis took off searching around the room. And Nathan had a moment to himself.

There was a building pressure behind his eyes with shapes dancing in his vision. The headache developing was the worse he’s ever had. His chest no longer felt like it was going to cave in, instead, it rattled with every breath. All his muscles were twitching, his thighs were the worse off. He tried to look around to see if anything caught his eye when he spied a large book on the table.

“Sebastian, there’s a book down here you should look at,” Nate called out, the brunette rushed down the stairs. The tan teen moved a hand to his templet and began to rub his fingers in small circles, hoping to chase away the worse of the headache.

“Mate, you’re not looking too good.” Sudden worry rushed through Sebastian. His friend looked shockingly pale and sick. He couldn’t help but compare the state of him to Anne, but he quickly chased that thought away. They weren’t in the same situation, there was no need to compare them.

“Thanks, that’s a real confidence boost.” Nate didn’t even open his eyes when he replied. Sebastian shrugged, he didn’t expect his friend's brazen words, but that was probably the exhaustion. After all, he was bitten by a snake statue, hexed for not being pue-blooded and went through the Cruciatus Curse, the filter must have gone out the window.

“Looks like a spell book of some kind. This is incredible. A Hogwarts founder’s possession - what an honour. Still can’t believe Ominis never told me about his aunt and what she found.”

“Oh how interesting,” Nathan wasn’t really paying attention, too busy trying to hear his over the roaring in his ears, “What will you do with the spell book?”

“What I do with every book: read it. Having professors as parents ingrained that habit early on. But I can do that later. For now, I say we explore this room. It’s breathtaking.”

“I’ve been getting an uneasy feeling about this place. We shouldn’t linger here. Let’s find a way out, please.” Ominis sounded desperate and Nathan agreed with him.

“I don’t want to leave, but I owe you - both of you. Without both of you, we’d never have made it this far.”

“We were lucky - we could have died - we must swear never to do this again.” None of them spoke, Nathan out of pain, Sebastian not wanting to make a promise he might not keep and Ominis from being stuck in his own head.

“I think I’ve found a way out.” Sebastian’s voice was further away, he had gone back up the stairs to examine a precarious-looking statue. He pressed an oddly placed stone on the statue and it swung around revealing an empty space.

“Let’s get out of here.” Ominis’s voice was closed again. Nathan opened his eyes and was pleasantly greeted by beautiful unseeing eyes. Ominis was offering his arm to him again.

“Yes, let's.” They resumed their previous position with the blonde helping Nate walk.

The three of them crammed themselves into the opening, which felt like it was only meant for two people, but they made it work. It briskly spun and threw them out. Sebastian was at the bottom of the pile, Nathan on top of his and Ominis bounced off of Nathan then fell to the side. Nathan groaned as a fresh wave of pain engulfed his body. The brunette helped him stand up against the wall for support. His legs felt boneless as they began to shake.

“Are we outside the Common Room - it was right here, under our noses the entire time,” Sebastian spoke getting frustrated. He took a deep breath to calm himself and turned back to his friends. “Ominis, about your aunt-”

“Please, Sebastian. I meant what I said before. We swear right now never to engage in anything to do with Dark Magic again.” Ominis raised his voice, his tone full of fear, worry and deep sadness.

“Understood. I’m truly sorry about your aunt, Ominis.”

“I suppose after all of this, I am grateful to know what happened to her - thank you.” Sebastian already had his head buried in that spellbook, he shot off wanting to find a quiet place to get lost in the pages. Ominis needed some time alone, he needed to grieve properly and Nathan faintly remembered about the other journal entries tucked in his pocket. Before he could call out both of the boys were gone.

“Guys?” That’s when Nathan’s legs gave out on him. He shoved his body backwards so that it would slide down the stone wall instead of falling flat on his face, he knew better, this wasn’t his first time. His legs were sprawled out on the ground, his arms too heavy to move. The pain behind his eyes had gotten worse and he could barely see past the shapes. He felt his body droop, no longer able to keep holding him functioning.

The last thing he saw was something red and orange running towards him with a black shadow following behind.

“Nathan! Professor!” Nate’s head lolled to the side as the two rushed to him. The world around him seeped into nothingness.

Chapter Text

I

Friday morning in the Great Hall proved to be quite a boisterous time of day. Students of all ages were excited that it was so close to the weekend and were busy planning their days with their friends. 

A group of Ravenclaw girls were going to go into Hogsmeade, that had heard that Mr Hill at Gladrags had gotten new stock in. A pack of Gryffindor boys were planning a trip to Honeydukes to gorge on sweets and spend the afternoon in the Three Broomsticks. The younger years were putting together study groups and gobstones plans, some of them were bribing the older years into buying them something from Zonko’s to cause a little mischief. Over by the fireplace, Imelda and other quidditch players were organising training sessions. Headmaster Black might have banned the game for that year but they couldn’t become lazy, not when some wanted professional quidditch careers.

Altogether it was a typical Friday morning, filled with delicious breakfast and weekend excitement.

Until Garreth Weasley burst through the Great Hall doors, silencing everyone nearby to look at the boy who had disturbed them.

Garreth himself was scanning the Gryffindor table in search of someone specific. He was missing his robe, jacket and waistcoat, his white cotton shirt was untucked and wrinkled with the sleeves rolled up. His tie was half done and hung loosely around his neck. What got his peer’s attention was the dark bags under his eyes and his dishevelled hair which looked like he had repeatedly run his fingers through for hours, it was sticking up in all directions. His eyes finally landed on the person he was looking for and began to rush down the table.

“Natty!” He yelled to catch the girl’s attention. Natty, in turn, turned around at the sound of her name, and a half-eaten slice of toast hung out of her mouth. Upon setting her sights on her friend’s state she instantly rose from the table to meet him.

“What do you think that’s about?” Sebastian asked Ominis across the room as they sat at the Slytherin table.

“Considering that it’s Garreth, he’s probably properly blown up the potions classroom this time.” The blonde spoke as he dipped a soldier into the yolk of his egg. The brunette watched with rapt attention on the two Gryffindors. Natty had forced Garreth to sit down, her hand didn’t leave his shoulder until he had put something on the plate in front of him. She then turned around and searched the sea of students, her eyes settled on the two Slytherins. She leant down and muttered something into the ginger’s ear before she made her way over to them.

“Uh oh, incoming,” Sebastian murmured to the blonde between bites of his scotch pancakes.

“Oh hush, don’t be like that.” Soon enough red was standing in front of them.

“Natty, what can we do for you?” Sebastian asked. He rested his cheek on his fist. When he noticed the Gryffindor’s distressed state he sat up at attention. “What’s wrong?” Those words caught Ominis’s attention. He immediately put down his toast and give the girl his full concentration.

“Since you are asking that I am guessing you don’t already know,” Natsi fidgeted with the sleeves of her robe, pulling herself together, she needed to keep it together and take charge. “It’s about Nathan. Garreth and Professor Sharp found his last night, he’s currently in the Hospital Wing.” That had both of the boys on their feet. 

“What?” Sebastian yelled. He had gained the Hall’s attention.

“What happened?” Ominous asked more calmly, placing a hand on his best friend’s arm in hopes that the action would settle him.

“That I am unsure of - I had hoped you two would have known. Garreth has been with him all night and he has barely any answers as well - before you ambush him.” Sebastian squeezed Ominis’s hand on his arm.

“We’ve got to go see him.” Without any hesitation, both boys stepped over the bench.

“We shall join you soon, I need to find Amit and Poppy to let them know as well.” 

“If it helps, you’ll find Amit in the library at this time of day - and Poppy will most likely be feeding the Kneazles,” Ominis informed her as he and Sebastian rushed off.

II

In the Hospital Wing Professor Fig and Nurse Blainey were in a heated argument as the black-haired teen slept peacefully, unaware that he was the centre of discussion.

As the two Slytherin boys rounded the corner to the Hospital Wing, they noticed the adult in the misted of a verbal debate. They quietly edged into the room, not wanting to disturb the two. And curiosity had overtaken any of their rational thinking, they silently listened in.

“There is nothing in that boy's folder that mentions any of that.” Nurse Blainey spoke as she threw down a small pile of papers onto the table at the end of the room.

“Yes, I know - I’ve yet to have time to update anything in Nathan’s file.” Professor Fig countered as he pleaded with the attending nurse.

“As per protocol I should be sending an owl informing the parents of what has happened under our care - give me one good reason why I should not?” The Nurse’s stance was firm, she had hardened her stare so it looked like she was looking through the Professor’s soul.

“Please Noreen, when I went to collect Nathan on his fifteenth birthday I had to immediately remove him from that house. That place - his ‘home’ reeked of powerful Dark Magic. I feared the worse - and upon meeting his family only confirmed those fears. He has lived with me since - I am his legal guardian and so long as I am alive he will be safe.” Nurse Blainey relented under Fig’s soft words of fierce protectiveness.

“Fine. But update his files while you can - I don’t want this to happen again.” The Nurse patted the papers still on the table, then moved around the table to go into her office. Professor Fig took that as a sign to sit down and pick up a pen. Sebastian and Ominis emerged from their hiding place, crouched behind a privacy screen, to make it look like they had just entered the Hospital Wing.

“Professor?” Sebastian asked as Ominis took a seat beside their unconscious friend, a pit of guilt was eating away at both of them when they finally set eyes on him. Professor Fig jolted in his seat, not expecting the boys.

“Ah, Master Sallow, Master Gaunt, I should have expected you both to have turned up sooner rather than later.”

“We came as soon as we heard,” Ominis muttered to the older teacher. Noticing both of the boys' sullen dispositions he decided to try and bring some light on the situation, making them see they have no blame in the situation.

“Do not let guilt consume either of you - neither of you caused this to happen.” Sebastian opened his mouth to argue back, Fig wasn’t in the Scriptorium with them, he wouldn’t know. “No-” Fig interrupted before the brunette could utter a word, “no you didn’t,” Fig warned “Master Sheppard informed me months ago about this sort of thing happening, blackouts as he called them. But I’ll let Master Sheppard tell you more about that if he so chooses.”

“What happened?” Sebastian asked as he took the other seat opposite Ominis but still facing their Professor.

“That we are not sure about. Master Weasley and Professor Sharp found him collapsed outside your Common Room and quickly brought him here.” Fig glanced at the sleeping teen. His robe had been changed for blue pin-stripped cotton pyjamas, his uniform neatly folded on the bedside table. He had the look a concerned father would have, Sebastian had to fight of that small pang of jealousy when he saw his professor's face. “I’ll leave you, boys, to it, when he wakes up please alert Nurse Blainey.” 

“Of course Professor.” The blonde spoke as their Magical Theory Professor left the Hospital Wing, the small pile of papers in his hand - intending to fill them out in privacy.

“We did that Sebastian,” Ominis whispered as he slumped down in his chair.

“You can’t know that-” 

“Oh but I can - we were with him the whole time, if we had stayed with him at the end he might not be lying in this bed right now.” The blonde snapped back.

“He did look rather sick - but he said he was fine.”

“And we believed him? We had to practically carry him out of there, we shouldn’t have believed him.” 

“Why didn’t we stay with him?” Sebastian wondered out loud. He slumped forward in his chair, his hands resting in his lap. He was staring at Nathan’s sleeping face. His hair was swept back out of his eyes, it showed off his light freckles that dusted across his nose. A small beauty mark rested above his left eyebrow and finally, Sebastian’s eyes settled on his scar. It started above Nathan’s right eyebrow and in a clean motion swept down to his cheekbone. It never touched the lid of his eye but the scar itself was light enough that it wouldn’t be noticeable from afar. It made Sebastian wonder why he hid it in the first place.

“We were too caught up in ourselves. Myself with grief for my Aunt, I - I needed time alone to process everything. And you with hope in that spellbook and finding a cure for Anne. We couldn’t see what was right in front of us.” The boys fell into tense silence neither of them dared to break. Class had surly started but neither of them moved. The silence was only disturbed by the sound of multiple thundering footsteps.

Sebastian glanced back towards the Hospital Wing’s entrance. Four other students ran into the room, two Gryffindors, a  Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw. All of them were out of breath and bent over with their hands on their knees trying to regulate their breathing. Natty looked up and wasn’t surprised by the two Slytherin boys already by their friends’ bedside.

“We came as soon as Garreth finished eating.” She explained as she moved to stand in front of the bed.

“I told you it didn’t matter-” The ginger started.

“You did not have dinner last night, you are not skipping out on another meal.”

“I didn’t realise you were such a mother-hen, Natty,” Poppy remarked as she stood next to the other girl. 

“Someone has to have some common sense.” Amit was the last to catch his breath, which was a surprise since he climbed the Astronomy Tower practically every day.

“How is he?” The Ravenclaw asked as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to Ominis.

“He hasn’t woken up yet, so it’s a little hard to tell.” The blonde answered.

“Isn’t it a little suspicious with all of us out of class?” Sebastian asked as he leaned back in his chair.

“Don’t worry about that, Professor Sharp told the other teachers not to expect, well at least me a Nathan today,” Garreth spoke in a whisper, a large contrast to his usual explosive disposition. He was shaken by the whole situation and thankful, in an odd sort of way, that Professor Sharp had given him and Poppy detention that night, otherwise, it would have been hours before anyone found Nathan.

“I bet Professor Weasley loved that,” Sebastian commented.

“I think the Professor understood after we explained why.” Poppy piped up, a small smile on her face despite the worry in her eyes.

“I didn’t expect you and Nathan to get along, Amit - no offence.” The brunette Slytherin spoke rather bluntly, trying to get the others to start talking about something lighter.

“None taken. I know it is unusual given that Nathan seems to be popular with everyone, but - like me, he is completely fascinated with the stars. He told me a handful of the stories that not even I knew about - and in turn, I told him some of my favourites.”

“I understand that,” the Hufflepuff chimed in, “the first time I met Nate he helped protect the Kneazles from some bullies, stuck up for me to - even let me yabber on about different magical creatures and looked genuinely interested.”

“That’s Nathan for you. Thrilled to learn about anything magic related - well, everything except Transfigurations.” Natty chuckled.

“Oh don’t get me started on that,” Garreth groaned, “Aun - I mean Professor Weasley was almost red in the face trying to figure out why he wasn’t making any progress in her class, you should have seen her. And his face when she suggested he be tutored by Pewett.”

“When did that happen?” Amit exclaimed disappointed that he had missed such an event.

“Yesterday morning,” Garreth replied, “I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head.”

Throughout their reminiscent Nathan had silently woken up. He fluttered his eyes and tried to blink away the sleep, he didn’t move any of his limbs, still feeling too heavy and chose to listen in on his friends - a smile on his face.

“Can you imagine how smug Pewett would have been?” Amit cackled just imagining the exchange.

“Nate’s already beat him in Crossed Wands and Summoner’s Court. Pewett would have lorded it over him for months just for revenge.” Garreth snickered.

“He wouldn’t have been that bad, would he?” Poppy queried innocently.

“You don’t know Pewett like we do, he genuinely thinks he’s the best and when he’s taken down a peg he’s insufferable.” The ginger explained even though everyone but Sebastian thought he was exaggerating. They didn’t have to share a room with him, they don’t know.

“Though he is more bark than bite.” Natty tried to defend her fellow Gryffindor even though she didn’t truly have her heart in it. Through all that caused Nathan to sputter and chuckle, drawing attention to himself.

“You’re awake!” Garreth cried out as he resisted the urge to jump on the bed-bound boy for a hug.

“Good observation Garreth.” The blonde chimed in sarcastically but with no bite behind his words.

“Any reason you’re all talking about me like I’m knocking on death’s door?” Nathan asked as he began to sit himself up, Sebastian was quick to help.

“Just reminiscing.” Natty smiled seeing her friend awake and looking well.

“Ah - well in that case it’s a good thing none of you have witnessed my less-than-smart moments.” Nathan joked knowing he’s had plenty of dumb moments.

“You sure about that?” Ominis asked, a smirk on his face.

“You wouldn’t-”

“I watched you get lost from the Central Hall to the Greenhouses four times within an hour.” 

“That must have been when I first started.” Nathan tried to play it off.

“That was this Monday,” Ominis called him out and didn’t hold back any of his punches.

“Why didn’t you help me then?”

“I was too busy laughing at you trying to get directions out of Peeves.” None of them could keep a straight face any longer.

“Why in Merlin’s name would you ask Peeves for directions?” Amit asked, absolutely loving the absurdity of it all. The five of them were holding back their laughter, not realising that their friend was a certified moron.

“I thought he was the only one around!” Nathan tried to defend himself, “it didn’t help that he only spoke in riddles.”

“That and he purposely sent you in the wrong direction.” That was Ominis’s final blow. They couldn’t hold back their laughter any longer at the astounded look on Nathan’s face like he had expected the poltergeist to actually help him.

“How you got every girl fawning over you when you’re like thins, I’ll never know.” Poppy casually remarked between her laughs.

“What?” The bed-bound teen’s voice rose an octave.

“You didn’t know?” Garreth was almost doubled over holding his stomach.

“I see some girls giggling and whispering as I pass them, but I thought that was cause I had something on my face.”

“How are you this oblivious?” Sebastian muttered as his head was tilted back, staring up at the ceiling with a hand covering his mouth - hiding his chuckles.

“Nathan, sweetie, girls do that when they think you look attractive and fancy you.” Natty swooped into the rescue.

“Oh - OH!” Through their loud laughter, they accidentally summoned the Nurse.

“Alright you lot, get a move on. I need to check up on Master Sheppard.” Nurse Blainey interrupted.

“Go to class, I’ll be fine,” Nathan told them, hoping that him trying to shoo them off would get them into less trouble.

“You’re just trying to get rid of us,” Sebastian remarked.

“Don’t listen to him, we’ll come back at lunch.” Ominis piped up, making a promise to the black-haired teen.

“And bring you sweet treats.” Sebastian smiled his sweet tooth showing.

“A feast fit for a king,” Natty assured before they were herded out like sheep.

III

The last lesson the six of them had before lunch was Defence against the Dark Arts and as soon as the class ended they all rushed out of the door, not stopping for anyone. Many teachers and prefects yelled at them to stop or slow down, which they ignored. They had someone waiting for them.

Their first stop was the kitchens. Poppy led the way by tickling the pear. Once the door swung open and the six friends entered the cosy kitchens they couldn’t help but gawk, for most of them it was the first time in that part of the castle they called home most of the year. The Hufflepuff grinned loving her friend's reactions, she adored coming to the kitchens with its warm atmosphere and welcoming hosts.

“Deek?” She called out into the masses of house elves. The house-elf in question appeared in front of them with a large wicker picnic basket in his arms.

“Deek was told to expect all of you. Deek has prepared a large lunch and treats.” The house-elf handed the wicker basket over to the ginning mix of friends.

“Thank you Deek, we truly appreciate this,” Natty commented as Poppy took the picnic from the house elf.

“It was Deek’s pleasure. Give Deek’s best to Master Sheppard.” With those parting words, the six of them carefully made their way up many stairs to the Hospital Wing.

Sebastian being the chivalrous gentleman he is offered to take the heavy basket of snacks off Poppy’s hand, which she gladly obliged. It definitely was not a ploy so he could sneak some of the sweet treats. Ominis saw right through his long-time friend’s master plan, knowing exactly how his mind worked around food. Every time the brunette even tried to slip his hand under the lid of the basket the blonde piped up in a way that would bring attention to the brunette. Little questions here and there, he asked his opinion on the most random things and all eyes were on Sebastian, waiting for him to answer. Sebastian’s master snack plan was successfully foiled.

They seemed to reach the Hospital Wing in no time. As soon as they entered the room Poppy squeaked and quickly turned around, looking like she was about to walk back out the way she came. Natty followed her gaze, trying to gauge what had spooked the smaller girl. Natty abruptly turned red and turned around as well.

“What’s gotten into you two.” The redhead asked as he followed their previous line of sight. “Oh - never mind.” Both Garreth and Amit turned around too. Ominis didn’t bother as he had no idea what had the others so spooked. Sebastian though, curiosity got the better of him yet again.

Nathan was sat on the edge of the hospital bed, his back facing the door with his pyjama top off. His bare back was facing them. Nurse Blaniey had her wand hovering over his spine and her hand pressed against his chest, over his heart.

The brunette was tracing the skin he could see with his eyes. The random placement of freckles, the ridges where his spine and ribs lay, the beauty marks that were dotted around sporadically, and a large birthmark that covered his left shoulder blade. The jagged scar that sat at the small of his back. Nurse Blainey asked him something too quiet for them to hear from the entrance, Nathan replied by nodding his head and swiftly putting on his pyjama top back on.

“It’s safe - you all can turn back around now,” Sebastian called out to the four.

“You two didn’t give him some privacy?” Amit asked, astonished at the two Slytherins.

“If I move as fast as you did then we would have been eating lunch off of the floor,” Sebastian responded.

“I don’t see the problem,” Ominis replied hoping what he had said sunk in. After a moment it did the trick, sans Sebastian, they had forgotten that the blonde was in fact blind.

The Slytherin duo made their way to their housemate who was still sat on the bed but had brought his legs up from the floor and had crossed them underneath himself. The other scrambled after them.

“Nathan!” Garreth called out. The teen in question turned his head to the voice, a large grin appearing on his face at the sight of his friends.

“You all remembered.” None of them ignored the delight in his tone, it brought smiles to their faces as well.

“Of course we did!” The redhead proclaimed. Nathan moved over so that there was more space on the bed for some of them to join him, which Poppy and Ominis gladly did. Amit, Garreth, Natty and Sebastian found chairs around the room and pulled them closer. Once the brunette put down the basket, they quickly dig in, pulling out sandwiches, cheese and meat platters, fresh fruit and pastries. Sebastian’s aim was the strawberry tart he had seen in one of his many sneak attempts on the way over.

 “Has Nurse Blainey mentioned you being able to leave yet?” Amit asked in between bites.

“She has, by the end of the day as long as nothing else happens,” Nathan replied, thrilled at the prospect of leaving the Hospital Wing.

“What actually happened?” Poppy bravely asked from beside him. The ravenette took a swift look at his fellow Slytherins but just as fast looked down at the apple he was nursing, raising a hand to scratch at the back of his neck.

“You don’t have to-” Ominis started.

“They’re called blackouts,” Nate interrupted as he kept his head down, “at least that’s what the doctors call them.” Shame bubbled deep in his chest, he couldn’t look up, he didn’t want to see his friend's reactions.

“What are these blackouts?” Amit asked out of interest.

“They’re different every time, sometimes I’m still doing things but I’m not fully there - if that makes sense.” He took a deep breath, “then there are times like this one where I just collapse.” He explained rather reluctantly, it was either tell them this or explain about their trip to the Scriptorium. This wasn’t ideal, nobody besides his mother and Professor Fig knew about the blackout, he had hoped to keep it that way but knew that wasn’t feasible.

“Is there a cause? A trigger? Something we can look out for just in case?” He had kept his head down, not wanting to see their reactions to his admittance of being broken, but immediately shot his head up at Natty’s words.

“You want to help me?” He asked as he tilted his head to the side. Confused as to why they would want to do such a thing, which didn’t go unnoticed.

“Well - yeah - you’re our friend, why wouldn’t we?” Garreth asked dumbfounded that the ravenette would think that they wouldn’t.

“Oh- I - I don’t-” he took a moment to compose himself. Nathan was completely lost for words. Having his mother drill into him that no one else could know about this, that they wouldn’t understand and choose to stay around him. But his mother was wrong, this proved it, didn’t it? “I don’t know any causes or anything. They happen mostly at random - though - that was the first one since -” he looked away from them, biting his bottom lip and furrowed his brows, “since I left home.” he spoke barely above a whisper, “but that was nearly six months ago, why would they start again now?” It was something Nathan would have to discuss with Professor Fig at a later date, figuring out what had changed. 

But for now, he let Garreth and Sebastian take charge of the conversation and change the topic by trying to teach the new fifth-year the rules of Quidditch since they were both on their house’s teams.

IV

After lunch, Garreth, Amit, Natty and Poppy left for their next class after the many assurances that he was fine. Sebastian and Ominis stayed since they both had a free period. Nathan had moved so he sat against the pillows his legs stretched out and lying on top of Ominis’s thighs, who was sat next to him. Nathan had given him a pillow so he could lean comfortably against the bedside table. Sebastian had gotten up and was pacing at the foot of the bed.

“Would you stop pacing, Sebastian?” Ominous called out. The teen stopped pacing momentarily but started back up and shook his head. “Oh for heaven's sake, what’s got your knickers in a twist?” At this, the brunette did stop and look up at the two on the bed, specifically Nathan.

“Why did you lie?” Sebastian blurted out.

“What?” Nathan asked.

“Why did-”

“No, I heard you the first time. What do you mean?”

“You lied to the others. You could have told them about the Scriptorium and what happened down there, but instead, you come out with that bullshit story. Why?”

“I didn’t think either of you wanted them to know about that.” Nathan calmly replied even though he was seeing red.

“I for one would rather keep that between the three of us.” Ominis chimed in. He didn’t want others to know about his so-called family legacy and its Dark nature of it, unflattering rumours were already thrown around about him, and he didn’t need any more of them.

“That’s what I thought.”

“And what about that bull-”

“It’s not bullshit, so stop calling it that Sebastian.” Nathan practically yelled. He had told them something close to his heart to cover the brunette's ass and he was throwing it back in his face.

“Wha-” The tan teen didn’t let him finish.

“It’s not bull-” He took a deep breath to calm himself, he felt Ominis slip his hand into his and give a squeeze, hoping that physical contact would help in some way. Nathan squeezed back, grateful for the blonde. “It’s not - what I said about the blackout - that wasn’t a lie. I do have blackouts and I don’t know what causes them.”

“You mentioned doctors, as in plural?” Ominis asked softly not wanting to push his friend.

“Yes, my Mother didn’t trust the first doctor’s opinion so she asked another and then another, till she found someone that she thought could help,” Nathan explained unenthusiastically. He leaned his head back against the bedrest, staring above Sebastain’s head.

“Sounds like she cares.” The brunette commented. Sebastian felt that rotten feeling creep up again at Nathan’s words about his mother. He still had his parents and they obviously cared about him a lot.

“That’s one word for it.” He didn’t know how Nate could sound so callous about it. He sounded like he didn’t care about his mum’s efforts to help him at all, it infuriated the brunette.

“How can you say that, it sounds like she went to great trouble for you! And you sound like you don’t even care.” Now Sebastian was seeing red.

“I spent the majority of my life in my house, only seeing my family, tutors and doctors, excuse me for not leaping for joy.” 

“At least you’re family was there-”

“Family isn’t everything Sebastian.” Ominis cut in not liking where the conversation was going, “You should know that.” Sebastian finally dropped the subject, knowing not to cross the blonde, especially when it was about that kind of subject.

Nathan understood where Sebastian was coming from. He had met Anne and his uncle, he knew the brunette had experienced a loss of the worse kind. But Sebastian didn’t know much about him or his life before Hogwarts and at that moment Nathan didn’t want to explain his life story. He may never want to share his life story and that was his choice, not Sebastian’s. Nathan was finally making decisions for himself and he wasn’t going to let anyone take that away, now even his friend.

Chapter Text

I

The weekend came and went. Nathan had spent most of his time in the Room of Requirement. At first, his seclusion was to avoid an awkward conversation with Sebastian. After their argument on Friday - was it really an argument if only one person was arguing? - Sebastian had stormed off, hopefully, to calm down. Ominis had spent the rest of the day with Nate and even walked him back to the Common Room once Nurse Blainey saw him fit for discharge. Though, once the blonde’s back was turned he fled to the safety of the Room of Requirement.

He spent his days catching up with his classwork, creating more potions for his adventures outside of Hogwarts’s walls and checking in on his beasts. At night, when his eyes drooped and he couldn’t concentrate anymore, he wandered into the newly acquired beach Vivarium and slept on the soft sand under Highwing’s warm wing.

Monday came around too quickly for Nathan’s liking. He had eaten his meals in the Room of Requirement over the weekend, Deek had brought him bits and pieces, and made sure to leave assortments of fruit in random places he knew the Slytherin would stumble upon. But when Monday came, he wasn’t hungry for breakfast, the butterflies in his stomach ate away his appetite. He headed straight for his first class of the day, Charms.

He arrived last minute on purpose, he gave none of his friends a chance to talk with him before he sat next to Natty and Professor Rohan made his entrance.

“Alright class, take your seats and quiet down.” The fifth-year students heeded his words as he made his way to the centre of the classroom. “Now, who can tell me the difference between the colour-changing charm and the growth charm?” The class were silent, no one wanted to answer the seemingly easy question. “Thank you for volunteering Master Sallow.” 

Sebastian coughed into his sleeve, trying to hide the fact that he was nodding off. It was only thanks to Ominis whispering the question into his ear that he was able to answer. “Well, like their names suggest one is a growth charm and the other changes the colour of its target.”

“Correct, five points to Slytherin. Can anyone tell me why these two very different charms get muddled up?”

It took a few moments but a Hufflepuff named Adelaide answered the Professor’s question, but Nate had already tuned out.

His mind was racing. Out of the corner of his eye - as he was blankly staring at the professor pretending to be paying attention - he could see Sebastian and Ominis glancing over at him every now and again and whispering to each other. It was distracting, to say the least.

He was pulled out of his absent thoughts by Natty placing a gentle hand on his upper arms in an attempt to catch his attention discreetly.

“I’m guessing you did not hear a word Professor Rohan said just now?” Natty spoke with a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Ah, you know me too well my beautiful friend.” That caused the Gryffindor to playfully roll her eyes at the other boy.

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“On the contrary, flattery gets me everywhere.”

“Oh yeah? Will flattery teach you how to cast the colour-changing spell the Professor just showed us?”

“Is that what I missed? Never mind, I’ll just have to have the most talented charms student teach me it then.”

“You are lucky I tolerate you.” 

“You love me really and you know it.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Despite their words both of them were smiling, they knew that what the other said was nothing but banter.

Natty was quick to get up and show the Slytherin boy the correct wand movement and incantation. This was followed by a demonstration where she changed the colour of his white cotton shirt to pink, which caused the boy to laugh.

“I don’t think pink is your colour.” Natty covered her mouth trying to conceal her laughter.

“Really? What gave you that idea?”Nathan tried to glare at the Gryffindor but couldn’t keep a straight face. “My turn?”

“Just don’t make me look ridiculous.” He quirked an eyebrow at that, outstretched his arms and gestured down to himself.

“Like you did?”

“Oh please, this is an improvement if anything.”

“I’m a fashion disaster.”

“When have you ever cared about fashion?”

“I’ll have you know I meticulously pick out each-”

“Honey, you have found every piece of clothing you own in the crypts and cave around here.”

“Toché.”

“Now cast the spell, I want to see the damage.”

Nathan took his stance, his wand in front of him and tongue stuck out in concentration, trying to decide what to change. Upon deciding he swept his wand through the air and spoke the incantation, “Colovaria.” Whisps of yellow magic glided over to the Gryffindor.

“You know, I don’t think green’s your colour.” He held a hand to his mouth as he admired his handy work.

“What did you-” She glance upwards, “Nathan you bast-”

II

Ominis was done. He had walked Nathan back to the Common Room the previous Friday night, only for the teen to disappear for the entire weekend. He knew it was Sebastian’s and his fault for the absence, with the brunette’s outburst in the Hospital Wing and the blonde not putting a stop to it sooner. But the brunette was too pig-headed to admit that he was at fault.

It became exceedingly obvious that Nate was avoiding them after Charms class. He came in minutes before the Professor did, and didn’t even glance his way judging by the quibbling whispers he received from Sebastian. And as soon as class ended Nate was out the door, neither he nor Sebastian had a chance to catch him.

That was when Ominis decided enough was enough. They had a short break before Defence Against the Dark Arts began, the blonde grabbed Sebastian’s upper arm and dragged him down the stairs passed the DADA classroom, towards the Undercroft.

“Ominis, what are you doing?” Sebastian tried to wrench himself free but the blonde had a steel grip on the the brunette.

“We need to talk.” 

“You couldn’t have just asked?”

“You wouldn’t have listened.” The gates to the Undercroft opened with a rusty clank, letting the boys enter the hidden room. Only then did Ominis release his grip on his friend.

“What is so important Ominis?” 

“You need to apologise to Nathan.” The blonde crossed his arms over his chest and stood in front of the gate, blocking off any chance of Sebastian escaping the conversation.

“Apologise? I haven’t done anything wrong.” The brunette all but bellowed.

“You know better than to bring up family relations - and by the sounds of it family is a sore subject for him.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Sebastian had gone on the defensive.

“Did you not pay any attention to him, he sounded defeated when you brought up his mother.”

“He did look tired.”

“And did you not listen to anything Professor Fig said? How his home - Nathan’s home reeked of Dark Magic.”

“He did say that.” 

“Pay attention to the people around you - or at least to the ones that you supposedly care about.”

“I - you’re right - I was just jealous I suppose.”

“Jealous? What could you possibly be jealous of?” Sebastian’s cheeks were in hot flushes, his palms were sweaty, he tried to dry them by wiping them on his trousers. He couldn’t admit the reason for his ridiculous envy to his friend - not yet at least.

“We’re going to be late for Defence Against the Dark Arts if we don’t leave now.” Sebastian expertly avoided the question.

“Fine.”

III

“How am I supposed to talk to him if he keeps avoiding me?” Sebastian furiously whispered to the blonde beside him.

“Well, you’re not particularly making any attempts to go over to talk to him - or are you waiting for Nate to come to us?” Ominous asked with a raised eyebrow. He could hear Nate and Garreth discussing potion ingredients and how an existing ingredient, such as a Fwooper Feather affects an existing potion.

“I’m not-” Sebastian was cut off by Professor Hecet moving the desks so that there was a clear floor space leading to an assumed closet in the place of the Professor’s desk.

“Can anyone tell me what is in there?” The Professor’s voice carried across the classroom silencing any preexisting conversations. “No one? Well then, what can you tell me about Boggets?” Leander quickly put his hand up.

“They take the shape of what you fear most.” 

“Excellent Master Prewett, can you tell me why?” Leander lost his previous confidence and remained silent. “Don’t know? - What does a Boggart look like then?” 

“Nobody truly knows Professor,” Ominous called from the back of the class, “it changes its shape instantly upon encountering someone.”

“Excellent, five points to Gryffindor and Slytherin - Now, how should you face a Boggart? And I’m looking for more than one answer.” Poppy reluctantly raised her hand.

“Make sure you are with another person Professor?” The Hufflepuff asked, unsure of her answer.

“And why is that, Miss Sweeting?”

“Two people would confuse the Boggart, making it indecisive on which person fear it should take.”

“Thank you, Miss Sweeting, five points to Hufflepuff.” She looked around her students, “any other way to face a Boggart? No? Well, that is what we are going to learn today.” The Professor stood tall in front of the class, demanding everyone's attention. “Repeat after me 

Riddikulus!”

The Class repeated the incantation, some with more enthusiasm than others.

“Listen carefully now

Ri-ddik-u-lus!”

The Professor sounded out the word and this time the whole class put in the effort. “That’s what I like to hear. Line up - single file - wands out.” The Professor made her way over to her desk which had been pushed to the side. She reached for her gramophone and put on light and vibrant music.

The closet’s door looked like it was about to rattle off the hinges. “Ready?” 

With a dainty nod from the Ravenclaw at the front of the line Professor Hecet waved her wand and the closet door swung open.

A pale bony leg stepped out of the doorframe, and the moaning voice came next. Out stepped an Infiri. An awful but understandable thing to be afraid of - Nathan remembers the many close calls he’s had with them, they can move fast when you’re not looking.

“Riddikulus!” The Ravenclaw shouted with a flutter of her wand. The Infiri was quickly surrounded by a large flower pot with a Chinese Chomping Cabbage biting its head. A bubbly laugh escaped the Ravenclaw, she moved toward the back of the classroom to allow another to take on their fear.

Most of the students' fears were classic, an Acromantula, a clown, or Gnomes. Then Ominis stepps up. A dark shadow replaced the Gnome in a tutu, unnatural hissing emitted from the shadows, Ominis grew paler every moment the hissing continued.

“Riddikulus.” It was barely a shout but it was enough to change the shadow into a mermaid tapping on the glass, this sent both Sebastian and Nathan laughing understanding the inside joke.

Next was Sebastian. The Boggart quickly transformed into Anne, but not the Anne the rest of the class remembered, the young girl that laughed loudly as she pulled another prank with her brother and best friend, this was the Anne that Nathan was acquainted with, the place and fragile young girl, with her cheekbone jutting out and a shawl permanently over her shoulders. She fell to the floor, blood pouring from her mouth and stopped moving. The brunette’s breathing had picked up, coming in shallow gulps.

“Riddikulus,” his first attempt had no energy behind it, the back of the classroom had erupted into whispers and murmurs. “Riddikulus!” He yelled full of vigor and spite. He heard the whispers when ‘Anne’ fell to the floor, they had no right to gossip about her. Ann’s form quickly erupted into a brightly coloured spinning top. The brunette laughed in disbelief, he had actually done it. He fled to the back of the room with Ominis.

Nathan was next in line. The spinning top kept spinning like it was trying to decide what to turn into. The spinning top then disappeared and the room darkened, three large ornate golden picture frames floated in the air towering over him.

The black-haired teen squinted at the frames, he was more confused than anything, he had no idea what this fear was meant to be, it wasn’t like he was afraid of picture frames.

When the Boggart sensed confusion rather than fear it shifted and warped changing into flashing green lights but not settling, it shifted again. The voice of a young girl drifted through the room. 

“Big brother, where are you?” Her voice was light and airy like she was playing a game of hide and seek. 

The gruff voice of an older man changed places with the younger voice, a light Scottish accent tinged every word. “Son, come on lad, yer making yer sister worry.” It shifted quickly again as it wasn’t getting the desired reaction.

A glass tank filled with leeches, then a bathtub overflowing with ice, and a white and gold carriage wheel. 

With every shift the Boggart took the Professor grew more uneasy, this was highly unusual. It was almost like the Boggart didn’t know or understand what Nathan was afraid of.

A middle-aged woman stepped out of the closet in a deep purple floor-length gown, the sleeves from the shoulders to the elbow were puffed out, a large bow hid her neck and the long skirt hid any other features. Her pitch-black hair was pulled back into a tight bun.

“Nathan Lucian Sheppard!” The woman yelled with a thick French accent. Nathan cocked his head and furrowed his eyebrows.

“Mother?” He then looked to the Professor, completely ignoring the Boggart, “Is the Boggart broken?” The Professor herself looked both concerned and confused, this hadn’t happened before in all her years of teaching. The Boggart then shifted again for the final time. In front of Nathan was a miniature version of a London Townhouse, the blood rushed out of his face, making him look as pale as the ghosts floating around the school. The Boggart had won. “Beverley House.” Nate’s voice was a mere whisper, if the Professor hadn’t seen his mouth move she would have thought he had not uttered a single word.

Professor Hecet wanted to intervene, this child had only known about his magic for less than six months, and even though he took to the wizarding world like a black bear to honey, he was still learning the basics. But she should coddle him, he wouldn’t learn if she did that, instead, she waited and if the situation became increasingly more concerning she would then intervene for the safety of her student.

After what felt like an eternity to the black-haired teen he raised his wand and whispered the incantation all while staring at the Townhouse with wide eyes, he daredn’t look away from the structure.

“With more umph Master Sheppard.” Professor Hecet called out, she hoped it would break him out of his trance.

“Riddikulus!” He yelled with a wave of his wand. This time the spell worked, and the Townhouse abruptly squished together creating a noise only an accordion would make. The sudden change made Nathan huff out a snort which turned into muffled laughter as her covered his mouth with the back of his wand hand.

He quickly left the line letting the next unfortunate soul have their turn. But Nathan didn’t stop once he reached the back of the room, he left through the classroom door without so much as a word or glace to anyone around him, though he did have his head held up high. His mother taught him better than to show any form of weakness.

IV

Despite only being an inch or so shorter, Nathan’s legs were long and elegant, Sebastian had to break out into a jog just to catch up to the new fifth-year. Once Nate had left the classroom he had lent to the blonde next to him, his mouth open with a question on the tip of his tongue.

“If you’re about to ask me if you should go after him I’m going to smack you upside the head, you buffoon.” Ominis quipped in before Sebastian could even utter a single syllable. It took him a moment to process what his friend had said, but once he realised he was stood with his mouth open, doing an impressive impression of a trout in The Black Lake, he shut his mouth with a click of his jaw and bolted out of the classroom door.

“Nate, slow down, please.” The brunette called out to the taller teen. Nathan either didn’t hear the huffing teen or chose to ignore him, either way, he kept up his fast pace taking two steps at a time up the stairs, which Sebastian groaned at. They steadily passed students who had a free period, there were plenty of students lolling around, studying, chatting with their friends, and practising different charms, all in all, there were too many people around for Nathan to stop and take a breath comfortably. He needed to breathe without eyes on him and the only place he could think where that could happen was the Room of Requirement.

Nathan’s long strides up the stairs were interrupted by a warm hand grabbing his wrist and heavy breathing once he had stopped. Nate glanced at the brunette who had stopped to catch his breath behind him, and made a quick decision. He twisted his wrist in Sebastian’s hold and took a hold of his instead and tugged him along. This caused the brunette to squawk in surprise.

“Nate, where are we going?” The raven-haired teen daredn’t answer, afraid his would or crack revealing his inner turmoil when peers were around. “Nathan! For goodness sake, talk to me.” Sebastian demanded as he tried to pull his wrist out of Nathan’s grasp.

They soon reached the seventh floor and halted next to the Tapastry of Barnarby the Barmy. “Nathan-” Sebastian was cut off by a wooden door materialising on the empty wall opposite the Tapestry. “The Room of Requirement? I’ve only heard rumours- How-” Without uttering a single word Nate dropped the brunette’s wrist and strides through the large doors, “Hey- wait up.” Sebastian followed after his friend.

V

Once the black-haired teen felt the warm, cosy atmosphere of the Room of Requirement he finally felt safe and let the tension drop off his shoulders. He didn’t notice his friend follow him through the door with his jaw slack as he took in every detail of the room. Nate flopped down on the armchairs near the entrance of the room, he rested his feet on the pink pouffe that did not match the dark leather of the chair.

“This is amazing!” Sebastian called as he spun in a circle trying to take in as much of the room as possible. He was struck with awe at the full glass ceiling with different plants hanging from it. The glass ceiling let in a lot of sun, washing the room over in a honeyed glow. Most of the walls were covered in house plants or spare parchment. He noticed an opening that led to stairs, curiosity got the better of him as he darted down them. He was greeted with a large long room with one side covered with plants in potters they studied in Herbology and the other side had plenty of potion brewing stations, Sebastian even spied a few hopping pots close to the window. He darted back up the stairs.

“Nate, this is amazing - is this how you’ve been keeping up with your studies?” The brunette asked, but before he could allow the other to answer he noticed the two Vivariums, one for the grasslands and the other for the beach. “What are those?” As he walked closer to the greenhouse-looking Vivarium he was spooked by a larger-than-average Niffiler dropping from the shelves along with a few house plants. It stared at Sebastian for a solid minute before it took a golden Galleon from the broken plant pot without looking and scurrying into the greenhouse. “Beasts! You have beasts!” He called out in excitement.

He turned to his friend with a flourish of his robe, but the excitement was quickly replaced with worry as he glimpsed at how pale his friend had gone.

“I’m glad you like what I’ve done with the place.” Nate’s weak attempt to lighten the mood did nothing to distract Sebastian from his worry.

“Nate,” the brunette strode forward taking a seat on the pouffe, being careful not to squash the new student’s feet, “what was that in there?” 

“Weren’t you paying attention? My fear - for the whole class to see no less.” 

“But for the first few you looked more confused, it’s only when it turned into that fancy house did it affected you, it even looked like Hecet was about to step in.”

“Was it really that bad?” Nathan’s hair had completely covered his eyes not allowing Sebastian to read his emotions.

“It was - do you - you don’t have to - but do you want to talk about it?” Nathan finally looked up, shocked at the question. There were many emotions that flew across his face, but most of all he looked conflicted like he wanted to speak but something was holding him back.

“Not right now - but at a later date, maybe?” His voice was small and unsure, thinking Sebastian would cut him down and say no.

“Alright -” a sigh of relief did not escape the brunette’s notice, “is there anything I can get to help?” 

“Would you accompany me to feed my beasts? I can introduce you to the Irondale Pilferer.” 

“Irondale Pilferer?” Sebastian asked.

"It's a long story, but spoiler - it was really a Niffier." 

Chapter Text

I

Nathan really hated mornings. He was either up so early that it was still dark outside or laid in till he was the last one up. That Thursday was a bit of an oddity, Nate had woken up at the same time as the others that he shared his room with, which was a first.

Nate didn’t know how to react. Should he stay in bed until the others had left? Should he get up and wander around until he was alone? He never liked getting dressed or undressed in front of strangers, it gave him a sense of vulnerability that he dreaded.

“Hey look who's awake.” One of the other boys called out as he noticed Nathan’s awake state. He was taller than him, with pale blond hair sleekly tied back into a half ponytail, he had a sharp angular face with a prominent Roman nose. But it was his cold pale blue eyes that stood out the most.

“It’s too early for that Leo.” Another teen piped in looking half awake with sleep-tussled black hair.

“Didn’t mean you Ernie, I meant the new boy.” There was the sound of clothes rustling and three pairs of eyes were on him. Nathan tentatively looked over at the others a lopsided smile on his lips.

“Morning,” Nate muttered and the air in the room loosened up.

“Well, this is new.” The final boy spoke. His short hair was spiked up and he was the only one that was nearly fully dressed. “What do we owe the privilege to you being awake at the same time as us plebians?” He mocked. Maybe Nate should have learned their names.

“Dunno, just woke up.” Sleep was still heavy on his tongue as he sat up, the loud pops and cracks from his elbows and back filled the room as he stretched out.

“Nathan right?” Leo asked, at least he knew his name since the other black hair teen said it.

“Yeah, you can call me Nate though.” 

“Leo Malfoy,” the blonde introduced himself, “that’s Ernest Potter.”

“Call me Ernie.” The other black-haired boy piped up.

“And finally-” Leo was quickly cut off.

“Charles Hewitt, but my friends call me Charlie.” The brunette quickly pulled his tie up, not bothering to turn around and address Nathan properly.

“Nice to make your acquaintance,” Nathan spoke as he finally lifted his duvet off and placed his feet on the ground.

“We’re about to head for breakfast, will you be joining us?” Leo asked as he pulled on his blazer.

“Thank you for the offer, I’ll catch you up.” For the first time, Leo’s cold pale blue eyes caught Nathan’s warm forest green eyes and a look of understanding passed over the blonde. Nathan quickly realising his error turned his head away and fluffed up his hair on his left side, quickly hiding his hideous scar.

“We’ll save you a space.” Ernie cheered as he dragged Charlie and Leo out of the room complaining about his stomach grumbling.

It took Nate barely any time to get himself dressed, face washed and hair looking somewhat acceptable. He was at the breakfast table sitting beside Leo munching on a chucky egg when something loud plopped down in front of him.

“Nate.” He knew that voice and didn’t even need to look up from his breakfast to react.

“Morning Seb, Morning Ominis.” His roommates on the other hand had jumped at the other boy’s loud random appearance.

“Didn’t know you lot were friends?” Seb spoke making his accusation a question.

“They’re my roommates,” Nate explained.

“Nate finally woke up in time to actually meet us.” Ernie happily imputed.

“Interesting.” Ominis voiced, speaking for the first time that morning.

“Gaunt.” Leo greeted the sandy blonde teen.

“Malfoy.” Ominis greeted back. They had a mutual understanding and respect for one another, after all - they were both the black sheep of their families. But they never went out of their way to be friends with each other.

“Right, this just got strange - come on, Charms starts in ten minutes.” Charlie rose from his seat, and Leo and Ernie followed suit. 

“Nice to officially meet you, Nate - see you later,” Ernie called out as they left the Great Hall.

“New friends?” Seb queried.

“Like I said, they’re my roommates.”

“Speaking of roommates.” Ominis elbowed Seb in his ribs, reminding him of their morning mission.

“Oh yes!” Sebastian grabbed a sheet of paper from his robe and slammed it down in front of the black-haired teen in excitement.

“And this is?”

“We want you to move into our room.” Ominis calmly stated.

“And your current roommate is alright with this?” Nate asked as he dipped another soldier into the chucky egg.

“Well, we haven’t asked him yet-” Ominous starts but was quickly cut off by Sebastian.

“We were hoping you could talk to him since you’re so good at convincing people to do things.”

“I’m really not, but I’ll talk to him - who is your roommate anyway?” Sebastian glanced at Ominis.

“I don’t know his name.” The blond admitted.

“You’ve shared a room with him since the start of the year, been in the same house as him for five years and were probably sorted together and you don’t even know his name?” Nate asked as his empty plate disappeared from in front of him.

“When you put it like that it sounds bad,” Nate simply raised a single eyebrow at the brunette. “Don’t look at me like that - he normally hangs around your roommates, should be pretty easy to convince since he’ll most likely be moving back in with his friends.” 

“Fine, I’ll go talk to him.” He takes the form from Sebastian's hands and looks it over, “but I make no promises.”

II

Nathan was wandering the Asronomy Wing, definitely not lost in the slightest. He was mapping out the building internally so he would stop getting lost and using the field guide to find his way, the golden trail that came out of the book when he pointed to a specific place on the map had helped him more times than he could count. But he didn’t particularly like the looks he received as he followed the glowing trail.

“Can’t see this being much good to a half-blood.” The voice cut him out of his musing. As he turned a corner he saw an older Slytherin teen with what must be one of his friends holding up a book and keeping it out of the reach of a first-year Hufflepuff student.

“Please!” The Hufflepuff yelled, begging the older teen to give back the book. Nate took a look at the other Slytherin, he didn’t recognise him meaning he was either in the year above or below Nate. Either way, he was bullying a first-year and Nate didn’t particularly care for bullies.

“What about you? What do you think” The Slythrin teen asked his friend.

“Please - just give it back.” The Hufflepuff boy cried out once more, and Nate had heard enough.

“Accio,” Nathan called out. The book quickly flew out of the older Slythrin’s hand and into Nate’s.

“Please - not you too.” The Hufflepuff boy cried out as he made his way over to Nate. The black-haired teen turned the book over in his hands examining the title.

“Charming Charms by Oswald Grim sounds interesting, make sure you learn plenty from it.” He gives the book one more glance over before he hands it to the Hufflepuff. The Hufflepuff hesitates, looking at the book and Nate before reaching for it and quickly pulling it to his chest.

“Thank you.” He whispers before scampering away. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” The older Slytherin has a face of thunder, unhappy that his fun had been quickly squashed.

“What do you mean? I was only returning a book.” Nathan cocked his head in a complete look of innocence.

“Don’t you know who I am? I could ruin you-”

“What year are you in?” Nate's sudden question throws the older Slytherin off.

“Seven, clearly more advanced than you-”

“So you’re seventeen, maybe eighteen and you find it funny and acceptable to torment and bully an eleven-year-old?”

“Thomas, we should go-” His friend tried to intervene but Thomas was too far gone to reason with.

“Who do you think you are? You’re just some nobody that didn’t have enough magic to get in during the first year - You’re nothing special-”

“Neither are you if I’m being honest - you clearly have a superiority complex. What’s got you so insecure?” He looks between Thomas and his friend. A pretty older Slytherin girl and it clicks in Nathan’s mind like a puzzle piece. “Oh! You like her. You’re bigging yourself up in front of her to impress her.”

“Shut. Up.” Thomas had gone completely red but a scowl was deeply etched in his face. Nathan never really knew how to shut his mouth. Thomas pulled out his wand, “you’re going to regret ever coming here.”

“Oh shi-” Nate quickly dodged out of the way as a spell was thrown at him. The quick barrage of spells from Thomas made Nate summon the Protego spell and keep it in place. 

“The Headmaster’s coming.” One of the younger students yelled and most of the student body scattered to a safer vantage point.

“Expelliarmus!” The yell echoed throughout the hall and Thomas’s wand went flying. Once he was disarmed Nate finally put down his protection.

“Headmaster, sir-” Thomas was quickly silenced by Headmaster Black raising his hand.

“Explain this mess at once.” The headmaster's voice was calm but vicious.

“Sheppard antagonised me sir-” Thomas smirked thinking he could get out of trouble by throwing all the blame onto Nathan. He was just glad the young Hufflepuff had fled before the Headmaster appeared.

“Master Sheppard, explain.” Headmaster Black stood tall, glaring at the boys.

“He was bullying a younger student, Sir, giving a bad name to Slyhterin’s.” Nathan had the good sense to at least look guilty about the results of the event. Headmaster Black looked over both of the teens, he had heard of Sheppard’s escapades inside and out of the castle.

“Detention for both of you. You will explain to your head of house the reason for your detention. And if I hear any more of this happening expulsion will be the least of your problems, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes Sir.” Both boys spoke not wanting to get into any more trouble. Headmaster Black leaned in, only wanting the boys to hear him.

“You are both Slytherin, act like it and do not dishonour our house again.”

III

It turned out Ominis and Sebastain’s roommate was called Owen Wood, the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. Sebastian was on the Quidditch team, how did he not recognise his own teammate? Nathan sighed as he made his way to the Quidditch pitch in the rain. Sebastian owed him big time.

Despite the rain, the Quidditch pitch was alive with activity. Different houses were scattered around the pitch, a handful of students were in the air practising manoeuvres and Imelda was challenging other students to a timed race. Imelda still hadn’t beat his time yet.

“Hey Nate,” A voice called from behind him, turning around revealed the voice to belong to Ernie Potter.

“Hi, Ernie.” Nathan went back to his mission of scanning the student body to find his target.

“What brings you to this neck of the woods?” Ernie piped up. Nathan giving up trying to find his target in the misty rain turned to the other Slytherin. Ernie was dressed in simple Quidditch gear but with a fair amount of protection.

“Running drills?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, despite Quidditch being banned this year Wood won’t let us get sloppy. Though, between Wood and Reyes I doubt we could get sloppy.”

“Speaking of Wood - is he here? I need to talk to him.”

“You thinking of joining the team.” Ernie was practically sparkling, excited by the prospect of his new roommate joining the team.

“Not exactly - I’m still pretty new to flying a broom-”

“And yet Reyes can’t beat your record time on the time trial, funny how that is, almost like you’re a natural,” If Ernie was fishing for something, Nate didn’t understand what it was and eventual the other gave in, “Owen’s up there by the way, and he won’t come down till practice is finished, you’ll have to go up to him.” Ernie pointed upwards to the group of students directly above them.

“Oh god-” Nathan cringed, he hated flying in the rain.

“You got a broom?” 

“Yeah, I have a broom, not a fan of flying in the rain though.”

“Eh,” he shrugged, “You’ll be fine - probably. See you up there.” Ernie summoned his own Hogwarts House Broom.

Nathan took a moment to let out a deep breath before he summoned his Silver Arrow Broom and flew up to the Slytherin team above him. Wood had just given his team drills when he reached the other boy. He had a leather helmet covering his short copper-brown hair and his tall frame was covered by the house Quidditch robe.

“Excuse me?” Wood turned on his broom to face the other teen.

“Nathan Sheppard.” The other stated as a fact.

“I presume you are Owen Wood?”

“I see you’re well informed - you after joining the team?” The look on Owen’s face made Nathan think he couldn’t mince his word, it was better to be straight - or as straight as he could be - with the Quidditch Captain.

“No, am I right in thinking you’re Sebastian and Ominis’s roommate?”

“You are - what’s this about Sheppard?” Wood was getting impatient, he wanted to practice not talk.

“I want to swap room with you.” Nathan couldn’t get any more blunt if he tried.

“You move in with Gaunt and Sallow, and I’ll move back in with Potter, Malfoy and Hewitt. That sounds admissible - How about this, we race, if you beat me then we’ll switch rooms, no questions asked.”

“Deal,” Nate spoke with no hesitation, after all, he loved a good challenge.

“Excellent - I’ll make it simple and we’ll follow Reyes's usual time trial. Let the best flier win.” 

IV

“I see you’ve both filled the form out properly.” Professor Sharp spoke as he glanced at the form for a room change Sheppard and Wood had given him.

“Yes Sir,” Owen replied to their head of house.

“And what is the reason for this change?” Sharp inquired.

“I believe it would be a change that would be mutually beneficial to both of us as Sebastian and Ominis have been helping me catch up with my studies, being in the same room as them will most likely reduce the late-night study sessions.”

“And it will mean me spending more time with my friend who keeps me focused on my studies rather than putting all my attention into just Quidditch like I am currently doing.”

“You both make excellent points,” Professor Sharp looked between the boys. Both of them were soaking wet and windswept, they had obviously raced for his outcome, but who instigated the race he couldn’t tell. Owen Wood loved Quidditch and would gladly race anyone, and Nathan Sheppard, though not been in his house long had learnt the teen loved a good challenge and would never back down even when the odds were against him. “I shall allow it this one time.”

Smiles grew on both boys as they quickly high-fived. Upon remembering whose presence they were in they quickly calmed down and turned back to Professor Sharp.

“Thank you, Professor.”

“Yes, thank you, this is greatly appreciated.”

“I assume both of you boys are capable of moving your belongings yourself.” It was easy for the boys to agree. “You’re both dismissed.”

“Thank you, Professor.” Owen turned as made his way to the Potions classroom exit, throwing a curious look at the other boy as he didn’t follow the other’s lead.

“I’m sorry Professor, but I have another matter to discuss.” 

Professor Sharp raised an eyebrow at the new fifth year. “I believe I may already know what this is about - go on.”

“I may have gotten into a fight with an older student and gotten detention.” Sharp sighed. He had heard about the said fight from his last class and knew there was more to the story than what Sheppard was letting on.

“Explain.” Nate sighed he had hoped to get out of a full explanation, but since Sharp was an ex-auror he should have figured that he’d want all the details.

“An older student was bullying a first-year, keeping their library book away from them and taunting them, I summoned the book to my hand and gave it back to the first-year. I may have said something that aggravated the older student off and the next thing I know he’s throwing spells at me. The Headmaster broke it up and put us both in detention.”

Sharp regretted getting out of bed that day.

“Thank you for telling me, next time try and find a teacher before jumping in yourself, but good job on defending someone less capable than you.”

“I’m not in trouble?”

“You’re already in detention, I think that’s punishment enough.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Go on, you’ve got your belongings to move.” 

That plastered a smile on Nate's face as he dashed out of Potions Classroom door and headed off in the opposite direction of the Slytherin Common Room.

“I need to get that boy a map.”

V

It took over an hour but Nathan finally found the entrance to the common room. He had accidentally wandered to the Greenhouse and ended up helping Professor Garlick with the plants before remembering he needed to tell Ominis and Sebastian the good news.

“Nate, where have you been?” Sebastian called out from the couches by the fireplace. He and Ominis sat comfortably on the larger couch, a book in Sebastian’s lap. They were most likely discussing something to do with the book before they caught wind of Nate's entrance.

“Sorry, I got lost - but I have news.”Nate practically bound over to them. Both of them sat up to give him their full attention.

“You got into a fight?” Ominis joked as he took a spit of the tea on the side table.

“How do you know about that?” The blonde choked on his tea.

“You actually got into a fight?” Sebastian yelped as he quickly stood and patted Nathan down, making sure the other boy wasn’t hurt anywhere.

“I’m fine - it was pretty one-sided and I ended up with detention, but that’s not the news.” Ominis had finally recovered from choking on his tea.

“What could possibly top you getting into a fight?” The blonde asked as he sat up.

“You boys have a new roommate.” The three of them quietly cheered to not draw any more attention to themselves.

“I knew you’d be able to do it.” Seb proudly announced as he puffed out his chest.

“And you both will be helping me move my belongings.” Nathan happily threw in.

“I don’t remember agreeing to that?” Seb protested.

“No need, I volunteered you - Now come on we have no time to lose.” He looped his arms around the other two and dragged them off in the direction of his current dorm room.

Once inside the room, they bore witness to Leo Malfoy lounging on his bed with a book in his hand and Charles Hewitt at his desk furiously writing. Nathan continued dragging his friends into the room despite their protests.

“Hello,” Nathan called out to the other boys. Leo lowered his book and looked up at the trio that entered the room.

“Twice in one day, who’d have thought.” Leo commented, “And you brought riff-raff.” That grew a chuckle out of Nate while the other two looked mildly offended, Leo curled his lip at the fact that he made Nate laugh.

“Don’t worry, your secrets are safe - they’re here to help me pack my things.” 

“We offended you that much that you’re moving out?” Charlie piped up, taking a short break from his writing.

“No nothing like that, Owen is taking my place so you shouldn’t miss me too much.” Nathan rationalised.

“Owen Wood, is moving back in?” Charlie asked as he stood from his chair.

“That’s what I just said.” Nate had moved to his wardrobe and started pulling out his clothes and laid them on his unkempt bed.

“So it’s just a coincidence the day you probably meet us is the day you move out?” Leo asked, he put a bookmark in his book and put it down the the bedside table.

“It was pure coincidence I swear to you.” 

“Huh - I guess we know where Ernie is then,” Leo stated. Ominis was neatly folding up each item of clothing that Nate placed on his bed while Sebastian gathered together all the books tossed around that had the possibility of being Nathans.

“Helping Owen gather his things to move rooms?” Charlie questioned.

“Guessed it in one.” Ernie’s happy voice pipes up from the doorway, he was carrying a shrunken trunk in his hand, presumably holding all of Owen's belongings, with Owen standing next to him.

“Nate, mate, how do you have so many clothes?” Sebastian asked as Nate kept pulling more out of the wardrobe.

“I go on frequent shopping trips with Natty to Gladrags.” Nathan quickly called out knowing that wasn’t the full truth.

“I haven’t seen most of these robes in Gladrags and I know for a fact that Mr Hill would never sell a robe like this.” Seb held up his Kraken cloak. 

“Please don’t tell me you got it out of a cave,” Ominis complained as he grabbed the sleeve and gave it a distasteful sniff.

“Actually I found that one inside a crypt that needed a chess move to open up.”

“A crypt!” Ernie yelped.

“Well yes, I like to adventure and crypts always have the best treasure.” Nathan rationalised.

“Please tell us you at least washed it and didn’t steal it off a body?” Leo queried, growing more and more worried.

“Of course, I washed it, it had years of dirt all over it.”

“And what about stealing it off a body?” Seb asked hoping that his friend didn't rob a dead man’s body.

“It was a wooden chest inside the crypt, no dead men stolen from, stop your fretting.”

“Nate,” the black-haired boy looked away from the wardrobe, he hadn’t even started on his shoes yet, and toward Leo who had spoken, “This is why your friends worry about you.” 

“Not you too-”

“Thank you!” Both Sebastian and Ominis yelled.

“This is why you need supervision every time you leave the Castle,” Nate remained silent at Ominis’s words, “When have you snuck out without us knowing.”

“The Floo network is a very useful thing, I don’t even need to leave the common room to leave the castle at this point.” Nate was digging himself a deeper hole.

“Please ground him.” Charlie pleaded.

“Ha, none of you are my mother, good luck with grounding me.” He finished pulling out his shoes from the bottom of his wardrobe, a whole twelve pair and one odd left one and placed them in his chest at the end of his bed.

“Nate, you’re moving in with us, we’ll be able to catch you every time you try to sneak out.” Seb quickly shrunk Nathan’s chest with all his belongings in and picked it up before the other boy could protest.

“Shi- hey we can talk about this.” As Gaunt, Sallow and Sheppard left the room the rest of the boys suddenly realised that they may have dodged a very chaotic bullet.

Chapter Text

I

The weekend started with a cheer. Friday had Nathan free after lunch and Sebastian thought it would be the perfect time to tutor him in Transfiguration; Nathan reluctantly agreed, it was indeed the perfect time, but he just didn’t want to do it. Attempting to put it off as long as possible Nate demanded they complete the upcoming week's homework so they wouldn’t have to worry about it later. Sebastian reluctantly agreed.

After transfiguring a cat into a cauldron unsuccessfully for the fourth time, they decided to give in for the night. Seb mentioned making a study plan for their next tutoring sessions.

He needed a bath after that.

When Saturday came about Nate reckoned that he deserved a lie-in for the work he had done that week. Homework was completed, extra activities were completed, and all lessons were attended. He even ate at least two meals a day and completed ten more Merlin Trials in his free time. He deserved a lie-in.

Those beautiful lie-in plans were aggressively ruined by Gwen ever so lovingly squawking in his ear. He shot up in bed. His dreams of flying among the stars were quickly forgotten as he darted up and grabbed his wand in a defensive position. Upon examining the room and finding it to be empty, with no danger present, he huffed and sat back down on the bed. 

“What was that about my dear one?” Nate asked his beloved owl. She simply chittered and dropped a neatly folded letter into his lap, “and this couldn’t wait until I was awake?”Gwen cocked her head as if to say ‘Well, you are awake now.’

Nate checked the room over once again. Sebastian must have been up early and gone to the library with Ominis like he had planned the day before.

He wiped the sleep from his eyes as he chose his outfit for the day. He opted for a pair of grey trousers, a plain off-white cotton shirt, a pair of dark leather braces over his cuffs and a protective leather vest to match. He entwined a light blue fabric over the belt, the perfect place to hide his wand and quick access for battles. Then he chose a pair of calf-high boots. He had planned to go adventuring that day and the Highlands can be exceptionally boggy.

Once his face was washed, courtesy of the fresh basin, hair somewhat tamed and outfit self-approved, he took a look at the letter.

“Oh, a letter from Natty, wonder what’s so important?” He grew more puzzled as he read, “Looks like she’s waiting for me, think I’ve got time for breakfast before I go?” Gwen chirped, “You’re right - I can grab an apple from one of the fruit bowls in the common room. I better head off then.”

He grabbed his wand, securing it to its rightful place and the charmed bag Professor Weasley had given him; he could fit his potions, plants and treasures in there and still have room for more. Nate liked going cypt hunting with that particular bag.

II

As the Slytherin teen got closer to the location where Natty was waiting for him, he was acutely aware of the sound of a woman crying and two women standing near the dock gossiping.

“I would not want somebody like Harlow looking for me. I can tell you that much.” The two women were gossiping about the crying woman. How pleasant.

“What are we involved in this time, Natty?” Nate muttered to himself. Natty was pacing in front of the wooden gate, next to the floo flame. Once she spotted Nathan she rushed towards him.

“You are here, good.”

“Is this Mr Bickle’s home?” Nate asked vaguely remembering to contents of the letter from that morning.

“I believe so. He supposedly has evidence against Harlow. We need to speak with him.” 

As they walked closer, the wailing woman spoke in gasps between her sobs, “Why did he challenge that horrible man?” Nathan couldn’t stand it anymore. The poor woman was obviously in distress and the gossip had made no attempt to console her, he had to step in.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” When she didn’t answer him he decided to ask another question, hoping to distract her, “We’re looking for Mr Bickle-”

“My husband - is dead,” Oh shit, Nathan messed up. “He killed him!” Ah, murder.

“Oh - I’m terribly sorry Mrs Bickle. Who killed your husband?” 

“Theophilus Harlow! I’m sure of it! He’s been threatening my husband for weeks, and - where is my son? Where is Archie!” Murder and kidnap, this just became interesting, like one of the detective novels he dearly loved. He wasn’t going to voice any of that out loud.

“He must be around here somewhere. Where did you last see him?”

“Archie was home with his father while I was out. His satchel’s missing. Hopefully, he’s just wandering, as he’s prone to do.” Mr Bickle quickly wiped her eyes, “I hope he wasn’t when Harlow -when my husband-”

“Do you know which way Archie might have gone?”

“He has a little ‘hideout’ in the forest south of here. He never wanders far, but if he witnessed Harlow doing something to his father- I’m afraid to leave - in case he comes back home.”

“We’ll find you son, Mrs Bickle.”

“Thank you. What am I going to do?” Mrs Bickle’s wails grew louder and that was Nate’s cue to leave.

“Please do not worry, Mrs Bickle. We will bring Archie Home.” Natty called out as she jogged to catch up with the Slytherin. As she walked beside him she decided that was the perfect time to catch Nate up.

“When I took the letter we found to Officer Singer, she told me about Mr Bickle. He had been doing the same thing we are - providing Officer Singer with evidence to take down Harlow. I had hoped to speak with him about what he had found, but - we were too late.” 

Nathan thought, that if that were the case and multiple people were giving statements and providing evidence to Officer Singer then why hadn’t Halow been arrested yet? He tried not to think too hard about it as he gazed at the frost-covered landscape. He couldn’t help but try and peer around the trees and large boulders, he didn't want to unsettle his friend, but past experiences had taught him to be cautious.

“What did Officer Singer say about the letter you brought her?”

“She thanked me, be she clearly felt that it was not enough; it is a shame that hippogriffs cannot speak. Your friend Highwing could provide all the evidence against Harlow that we need. We will need something more.”

III

Walking through the frost forest with the midday sun beating down on them was oddly relaxing. For once nothing had jumped out at them that meant them harm or capture. After all Ranrok and Rookwood had ordered his capture, not his murder.

The breeze whistled through the trees and ruffled that grass making it look like green waves pushing and pulling with the tide. He could just imagine a sailboat, like the ones his brother told him about, crashing over the green waves. Deep in his thoughts, he hadn’t realised he had started to hum a tune his brother had taught him from his time on the ships. He didn’t see Natty’s amused glances.

“Pass around the grog, me boys - and nevermind the storm,” the lyrics were rusty on his tongue, he had not sung since he last saw his sister. “Drink the good liquor down before we call for more.” His grasp on the rest of the lyrics was loose at best, he chose to hum the rest of what he knew.

“You have a lovely singing voice, my friend,” he had forgotten Natty was beside him, “you should try out for the Frog Choir.” Nate snorted at the thought.

“No thank you, I’m not particularly fond of organised singing.” Or frogs for that matter.

The path split in two. A worn pathway that had seen many travellers and a small trail that wasn’t noticeable unless it was looked for. A clear lead to Archie’s hideout that Mrs Bickle had mentioned.

As the pair trailed right a small black cloth tent came into view, upon approach there were children’s drawings scattered across the ground.

“This must be little Archie’s hideout - that Mrs Bickle mentioned.” Nate examined the small footprints in the ground as Natty spoke, “Archie? Archie Bickle?” She called out hoping the young boy was simply hiding nearby. “He would not have done this to his own hideout. Someone came here looking for him.” 

Nate simply cast Revelio at the small footprints showing them leading down the path, away from the hideout.

“There! Archie’s footprints. He went this way.” Natty ran ahead after the glowing footprints. The path went further into the forest, the surroundings as Nathan passed were more of a blur to him, nothing was going to take his focus as there wasn’t anything more important than a young child’s life. He just prayed that they weren’t too late like they were with Mr Bickle. “I thought we would have found Archie by now.”

“I suspect he’ll keep running if he’s being followed.”

“If it is Harlow that’s pursuing him. I only hope you’re right. Men like Harlow would not think twice about killing a child. We must find Archie quickly.” They ran into an opening and were alerted that they were not alone by a howl. “Wolves! Prepare for a fight.” 

Nate immediately took his wand out and readied himself, waiting for the mongrels to come out of hiding. At the first sight of their dark fur, he let out a powerful confringo, followed sharply by a Depluso. Working with Natty felt natural like two cogs fitting together and working perfectly. The mongrels were soon taken care of without a break of sweat.

“I hope Archie didn’t cross paths with that wolf pack.” Nate was hardly listening, his focus was drawn to a yellow satchel bag that hung from a notch on a Douglas fir tree. “Archie’s satchel! Why would he leave it behind?”

“He was likely running from Harlow - distracted.” Wanting to move quickly Nate cast Revelio again hoping to pick up on those footprints again. As hoped the glowing path appeared. “Archie went this way.” They sprinted down the path, the forest becoming a white and green blur.

“I have a bad feeling about this. Harlow must have a reason for pursuing Archie.” Natty thought out loud.

“I wonder what Archie saw? I hope he didn’t see Harlow kill his father.” That would have been a horrendous thing to witness, Nate mused, forgotten memories resurfacing for the first time in years.

“He would never overcome it. At least not in any way I can imagine.” Natty muttered, to Nate it sounded think she was speaking from experience.

The road once again split into two, but not wanting to waste any time he cast Revelio. This time the glowing trail revealed a horrifying scene.

“Multiple sets of footprints. Harlow caught up to him here. This is not good. They went this way.” The larger glow went further down the path to the left. With a heavy heart, they both headed forward, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. Soon enough they came to what looked like a large frozen pond with Thestrals lining the path, nesting and relaxing in the cool grass.

“Thestrals! They are beautiful, are they not?” Natty gushed at the winged beasts.

“You can see them too?”

“I witnessed death when I was nine. Saw my first Thestral shortly thereafter. I found comfort in it. I still do. I think those of us who have witnessed death deserve some comfort.” They had stopped at the frozen pond, the Thestrals paid them no mind.

“I’m sorry you experienced something like that at so young an age.”

“I was with my father when he died. My mother was away, and I felt quite helpless. It was a long time ago in some ways, but in other ways, it still seems like it was only yesterday. I still see him so clearly.”

“I understand, you must miss him dearly - I know I do with my own father.”

“My father was a wonderful man. I - let us keep moving. We must find Archie.” The path down led them under a large uprooted tree and just beyond that a moderate-sized tent, surrounded by a camp of Harlow’s men.

“Let’s try and make this as quiet as possible,” Nate muttered as he cast the disillusionment charm on himself, Natty swiftly followed suit.

IV

Nathan and Natty split up. Nate went to the right and Natty to the left along the ledge. They silently took down each Ashwinder using Petrificus Totalus. Normally in these situations, Nathan would be steady and calm, he preferred going around and silently taking down those who would probably like to slice his head off, but with Natty’s life on the line as well, he was apprehensive, to say the least.

There were two Ashwinders together within eyesight of each other. If one went down, then the other would alert the whole camp and not only his, but Natty’s cover would be blown as well. This was a lose-lose situation no matter what happened. The Ashwinder could alert everyone, and those who were in the tent would come out and he and Natty would be overwhelmed. They were good duelist, but they were only fifteen years old, still children in the eyes of the law. At least if he took one of them down silently it would be one less to deal with in the long run. He took a deep breath and cast his wand out, whispering:

“ Petrificus Totalus .”

He cast the full-body bind curse, he expected to hear yelling and the start of magic wildly flying from the poorly dressed Ashwinder, but to Nathan’s utter shock, there was silence from the man. The spell had ricocheted off the first Ashwinder and bound the second.

A warm, joyful feeling spread across his chest - his magic was improving and developing, this was the evidence. The direct result was that he hadn’t noticed what was taking place. He had to stop himself from yelling out in joy lest they were caught.

He looked over to see how Natty was faring only for it to become evident that she had taken down her share and was waiting for him. He met her at the tent entrance.

“You seem pleased with yourself.” 

“I’m absolutely chuffed! My magic - when I cast that last body bind spell it sort of spilt off into two, I didn’t know I could do that.” Natty couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s joy.

V

“I am never leaving the castle again.” Nathan flopped on the couch in the Slytherin common room, burying his head in Ominis’s lap.

“May we have that in writing?” The blonde asked as he carded his hand through Nate’s black hair.

“What happened this time?” Sebastian asked from the armchair, putting down his book to give his friend his full attention.

“Natty and I saved a little boy from these Ashwinders that kidnapped him.”

“That sounds like a very noble thing for you to do.” The blonde sounded proud of his friend.

“So, what went wrong?” Sebastian asked.

“Catrin Haggarty was there, we were trying to be stealthy, but there was this big room and I fell into this cabinet the noise caused all the Ashwinders and Catrin Haggarty to finally notice us - it was a fight of our life. We were lucky to get out alive and reunite the kid with his mum.” 

“Catrin Haggarty? The Catrin Haggarty?” The brunette asked as he leant forward, fully invested in the story.

“I suppose so - why?”

“She was a skilled thief and con artist from Irondale, though she became merciless when she joined Rookwood’s Gang - been scaring a lot of people recently.’ Onimis explained. He chose to ignore the groans coming from the teen as he scratched the other’s head.

“Guess she won’t be scaring anyone now,” Sebastian muttered as he leaned back.

“She won’t be anymore,” Nate mumbled into Ominis’s lap, his voice barely audible as he drifted off to sleep. The day had been long enough.

Chapter Text

I

Nathan ran. His cold bare feet pounded on the uneven dirt of the Forbidden Forest. He shouldn’t have left the comfort of his dorm room that night – even though the adventure and the chance to help his friend were so tempting, how couldn’t he pass that up? Now his breath was coming in shallow and shakey, and he thought his heart might explode in his chest. He kept glancing around his surroundings, eyes wide and searching for danger that he knew was there. 

All he wanted to do was help Deek and Deek’s friend. He didn’t sign up for a giant spider-infested cave – all those hairy legs, unblinking eyes, and sticky webs were the worst part. The web always got caught on his skin and made him think tiny spiders were crawling around on him. And it was all in vain, Deek’s friend, Tobbs if his final letter was accurate, hadn’t made it – he hated the thought of having to tell Deek.

He had lost his shoes in the sticky spiderwebs as he tried to escape the cave, he cursed the fact as his feet ached as they caught on loose tree roots or when she accidentally stomped on a sharp stone. He had even been stupid enough to break his wand when he tripped over a root, he landed directly on his wand – his only consolation was that it wasn’t completely snapped in half. Maybe Olivander could fix it the next time he got a chance to go to Hogsmeade. 

As soon as he left the horrors of the giant spider cave he had been ambushed by Ashwinders – and with no way to defend himself or call for a broom – he ran.

He didn’t know how long he had been running for but it was dark – well it was always dark in the Forbidden Forest but his point still stands. He was exhausted and had no idea where he was going – he couldn’t see his way to the castle or at least a way out of the forest. He normally flew through the trees to get wherever he needed to go.

Out of the corner of his eye he the ruins of a building with a few frog statues dotted about inside it. The perfect place to hide since he couldn’t use his disillusionment charm to protect himself.

He made a beeline for the ruins. Nate ignored the shouts and the sound of spells hitting the ground near him. He jumped over the roots and weaved around trees - all in hopes that it would hide where he was going. As he got to the entrance of the ruins he all but collapsed next to the door frame, but he could still hear the thundering footsteps getting closer. He scampered back to his feet and backed up slowly. He couldn’t run anymore and he was now trapped.

He reached the four frog statues just as the Ashwinders reached the entrance, he put his hand down on the frog statue on the end of the left side. 

“There’s nowhere for -”

Suddenly the Ashwinders were no longer in front of him, following a croak it looked like he was on the ruined floor directly above. He held his breath and silently lowered himself to the floor, trying to hide himself in the corner and make himself as small as possible.

“Where did the bugger go?” One Ashwinder yelled to the other. From what he could hear there were at least four of them around the ruins.

“Dunno – boss won’t like that we lost him though.” 

“No shit Sherlock-”

“You’re a Conan Doyle fan?”

“Well obviously – his writing is clever and enthralling, for a muggle his work is pretty good. Now don’t change the subject! We had the child cornered!”

“Rookwood isn’t going to be very happy.”

“He isn’t, that’s why you’re going to tell him.”

“Me! Why me?”

“Cause you’re the one that lost him-”

Their voices drifted off as they got further away, but he still daredn’t move from his spot. He allowed his breath to become regular and not stifled as it was. He took stock of his surroundings, the floor looked like it could collapse under his weight at any moment. He looked at his aching feet, they were covered in blisters and blood, and mud covered most of the open blisters – he’d have to clean them soon lest they became infected.

He was going to be here for a while, he was too tired to move.

Nathan didn’t know how long he was huddled in the corner on the upper level of the ruined building, he had dozed off. The adrenaline had worn off after the Ashwinders had left, it had left him feeling the pain all over. The stray branches had caught on his sleeves and trouser legs leaving rips and scratches, but worse of all it made him realise how tired he was after what he presumed were an hour of running.

The sounds of more hurried footsteps awoke Nathan. He scurried back into his corner and covered his mouth with his hands to quiet the sounds of his breathing, praying the wooden floorboard wouldn’t creek under his weight. If it was the Ashwinders that had come back would he need to fight his way out? How would he fight his way out? He knew how to throw a punch but they would have caught him with some kind of spell before he got close enough to throw one. 

He picked up a loose brick, one that looked like it wouldn’t affect the structure of the crumbling building, and held it close. He didn’t want to think of what would happen to himself if he was caught, what Rookwood and Ranrok would do to him – what plans they had for him. Quite frankly he didn’t want to find out.

II

It had been nearly a full day since Nathan had left on his adventure and hadn’t come back, he’d normally be back after a few hours and telling them all about his self-made quest like they were his private journal – but he hadn’t come back. Sebastian and Ominis were beyond worried. They had slept through the first two periods since they didn’t have any lesson until after the first break which was Defence Against the Dark Arts followed by History of Magic. 

When they got up, they thought nothing of Nathan’s absence. He often was missing in the mornings—he was either completing Merlin Trials before breakfast or tending to the creatures in the Room of Requirement.

It’s only when the Defence class started and Nathan still wasn’t present they began to worry. They got looks from all their friends, first from Natty at the beginning of the class when Nathan hadn’t come in and sat beside her like he normally does. Sebastain could only shrug at her as he kept an eye on the door just in case. Poppy and Garreth approached them halfway through Defence when they were partnering up to practice a new spell.

“It’s not often I see Nathan to miss Defence,” Poppy commented.

“He hasn’t put himself back in the Nurse’s wing has he?” Garreth asked as he wrung his hands together.

“We don’t know – to be perfectly honest with you,” Ominis answered them both.

“He went out last night on an adventure and I don’t know if he returned.” Sebastian filled in.

“Do you think he could still be out there? On his adventure?” Poppy asked hopefully.

“I don’t know, he normally comes back after a few hours,” Sebastian replied.

“You don’t think he’s gotten himself in trouble do you?” Poppy questioned.

“If he’s not back by History we’ll go look for him.,” Ominis decided.

During History it was obvious that Nathan was missing, he and Ominis had a habit of sleeping on each other, so when Ominis started to doze his head hit the desk with a loud bang instead of gently falling on Nate’s soft fluffy hair, it became startlingly obvious that he was missing. 

Amit had thrown a ball of torn-up parchment at Sebastian near the end of History, asking where Nate was, Sebastain couldn’t answer, he shook his head at the Ravenclaw and went back to pretending to pay attention to the lesson.

The two Slytherins took lunch to come up with a plan of action, where to go to find clues to where Nathan could have gone. They decided to check their dorm in case he had come back first, then the undercroft, though Ominis doubted he would be there – Nate had barely set foot back in the Undercroft since Ominis had told him off. If he wasn’t there then Sebastain said he knew one more place that could help, and he supposed that he trusted Sebastian with this.

Their dorm held no answers, just a neatly made bed and a hungry Gwen with an unopened letter. The Undercroft was empty as well, nothing had been freshly blown up, and no new scorch marks.

“Alright Sebastian, where’s this secret place that Nate likes to frequent?” 

“It’s well – it’s probably easier to show you, we’re kind of already close to it,” Sebastian spoke, he hoped Nate would forgive him for showing Ominis his secret hiding place, under the circumstances.

When they got to the sixth floor of the Defence Against the Dark Arts Tower Ominis was breathing heavily and telling Sebastain to slow down before he cast the leg-lock curse on him. So Sebastian slowed down just a touch, but they were almost there and so close to finding answers. 

“We’re nearly there I promise.”

“We bloody better be.”

Then Sebastain suddenly stopped in the middle of the seventh-floor hallway and started pacing in front of the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy.

“Sebastian?”

“Yes?”

“Are you lost?”

“What? No, course not – it should open up in just a second.” 

“Sebastian?”

“What now?”

“Has a door always been here?” The brunette quickly turned around and quietly celebrated.

“Nope, this is the door to the room of requirement,” He grabbed Ominis’s hand and dragged him through the door, it was exactly the same as Sebastian remembered it the day Nate brought him here. Sebastian took his time to look around properly this time, last time he got distracted by the Viraniums filled with creatures. 

This time he noticed some personal belongings that he must have skimmed over last time. There was a classic violin lent against the wall next to the armchair Nathan had collapsed in, a small picture on a side table of a child-sized Nate and a little girl next to him, there were two books behind the picture both of them by some muggle called Arthur Conan Doyle one of them called ‘A Study in Scarlet’ and the other ‘The Adventure’s of Sherlock Holmes’. 

“Found anything?” Ominis asked as he waved his blinking red wand around the room, trying to take in as much of the new space as possible and becoming more and more impressed with what he was finding.

“Did you know Nate played violin?”

“That’s a surprise to me, but perhaps I should have been more specific -have you found any clues to where Nathan could be?”

“Oh – no I haven’t, not yet at least.”

“Good Afternoon Master Sallow, Master Gaunt.” Deek wandered into the room from the grassland Viranium.

“Deek, have you seen Nathan? He didn’t come back to our dorm last night.” Ominis asked the house elf.

“Deek has not seen Master Sheppard since yesterday, Deek asked a favour of Master Sheppard, and now Deek is worried – Master Sheppard should have come back to tell Deek about the favour by now.”

“What was the favour Deek?” Sebastian asked as he put one of the two books down where he found them.

“Deek has a friend called Tobbs, Tobbs was sent to a mean master and Tobbs was kept in a cave to collect Horklumps, but Deek hadn’t heard from Tobbs in a while so Master Sheppard offered to check in on Tobbs.”

“Where is this cave Deek?” Deek summoned a map of the area for the boys and marked the cave with an ‘X’. “That’s right on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.” Sebastain voice picked up a pitch.

“You don’t think he’s lost in the forest do you?” Ominis sounded just as panicked as his friend.

“I think that’s exactly what happened, last time we were there it was swarming with Ashwinders.” 

“We better not dally then.” the blonde’s word was final as they headed out to the Forbidden Forest.

III

The sun had started to set by the time they had reached the edge of the forest, the honking daffodils announced their arrival. The Forbidden Forest was as menacing as they remembered it. Ominis had a tight grip on Sebastian’s sleeve out of fear of the forest around them and not wanting to accidentally get separated from the younger boy.

“What’s in here exactly?” The blonde asked.

“You’ve never been in the forest, have you?” 

“I’ve never had a reason to disobey that particular school rule.”

“Don’t worry there’s nothing in here that we can’t handle,” Sebastian reassured the blonde.

They moved through the trees slowly, using Lumos to light the way and when they thought they heard anything that could spell danger, Sebastian banished the charm and let Ominis take the lead. Sebastian hated feeling so unsure about wondering around the Forest, normally when he ventured with Nathan the taller teen always strode with confidence through the trees – he had no worries about the perhaps danger around the corners, with the magical creatures that wanted to attack just for being in their territory or the Ashwinder and poachers that were hunting him, Nathan had plenty of reason to be fearful – but he wasn’t scared at all. Sebastian and Ominis were.

“The Ashwinders are more active than I’ve seen them before,” Sebastian whispered as they ducked behind another tree.

“They’re looking for someone,” Ominis commented as he strained his ears.

“Must be Nathan, they’ve been hunting him since the beginning of the school year.”

“They have? How wasn’t I aware of this?” 

“Nate is pretty good at keeping secrets when he wants to.”

The footsteps of the Ashwinders that they were hiding from suddenly got closer. The teens ducked, pressing themselves against the roots of the tree.

“You see anything ?” The Ashwinder spoke, by the sounds of it he was only a few feet away from the boys.

“Nothing, must have been a creature, swear I heard talking though,”

“The forest must be getting to you, mate.” 

“The faster we find the kid the faster we get out of here.” 

“Couldn’t have gotten far, not with that broken wand of his,” the voices got quieter as they walked away.

“He can’t defend himself with a broken wand,” Ominis muttered low enough for Sebastain to hear.

“We need to find Nate and fast.” As soon as they were sure the Ashwinders were gone Sebastian grabbed Ominis’s hand and ran. Ominis was using his wand to see what Sebastian could not, and Sebastian was keeping his eye out for anything that could attack them.

“Wait, there’s something over there,” Ominis pulled them to a stop, the ruins of a building with frog statues visible on the inside were in plain view.

“Check over there again, you could have missed something!” The Ashwinders were closer than Sebastian and Ominis would have liked.

“We need to run for the building, you ready?” Sebastian asked – Ominis put away his blinking red wand, not wanting it to give away their location and grabbed Sebastian’s hand, putting all his faith in the younger teen to be his eyes.

“Ready.” Sebastian tugged him along as they raced towards the ruins pulling the blond out of the way of the trees in his path, uncovered roots that would trip him up and away from any ditches that would send them tumbling to the ground.

“What was that!” One of the thugs shouted hearing their scuttle on the dead leaves. They ran faster, knowing they were going to be chased at best, and killed at worst. Sebastian recognised the frog statues, he had read about them in one of his books. He swiftly pulled Ominis over to them and slammed his hand down on the frog furthest to the right. With a croak, it transported them to the upper level in the left-most corner of the building, the boys were quick to cast the disillusionment charm hiding themselves as much as possible.

The Ashwinder’s footsteps got closer, they could hear the creaking of the wooden floorboards in the room they just left. The boys held their breaths, hoping that they weren’t smart enough to know what the frog statues were.

“Ey, ey, that’s twice we’ve seen the kid running round here and suddenly disappearing, what’s with this place?” One of them angrily stomped his foot.

“These frog statues-”

“Those ugly mugs! Should destroy them just for existing,”

“You will do no such thing, you can use them to teleport from one frog to another,” Oh shit, since when were thugs smart.

“Look see,” they heard the sound of stone being smacked but thankfully didn’t hear the creak of floorboards in any other part of the building, “so these two middle ones go to each other, which is stupid but at least we’ve got a fifty-fifty choice now.”

“So, left or right?” Sebastian and Ominis prayed they went for the left one.

“I’ve got a good feeling,” They heard the sound of stone being slapped again, but this time the croak was closer, they were on the upper level but not where they were.

They should hear a scuffle, “Got you you little fucker!” The Ashwinder shouted. The boys heard the sound of a brick falling on the wooden floorboards and a very familiar-sounding shout.

“Let go of me!” That was Nathan. The Ashwinders had a defenceless Nathan.

“I’ve got the kid!” The Ashwinder called out to his buddies below. Sebastain rushed to the wall and peeked over just in time to see a lanky thug throw Nathan out of the glasses window frame. Nathan yelped on his way down, he landed with a thud that would leave a bruise, he groaned as he tried to get up but was quickly pushed back down by the two other thugs that were left downstairs.

“We got you now you little shit!” The lanky thug used the frog to go back down to the lower level, not wanting to miss any of the action.

“Think Rookwood will give us a promotion for this?” 

“He has to, we caught the kid!” A larger thug swung his leg back and landed a heavy kick to Nathan’s abdomen, “That was for my mates you took out,” he knocked the wind out of the teen. Nathan curled up in pain, he couldn’t do anything else.

“Nathan!” The black-haired tell heard someone else call. The voices sounded close, familiar, but he couldn’t recognise them from the pain and exhaustion, he didn’t have his wand, he couldn’t fight back.

“BOMBARDA!” Sebastian yelled from the upper level, casting the explosive spell at the Ashwinder who had just kicked his friend. The spell sent the unsuspecting Ashwinder flying. Ominis was quick to slam his hand down on the frog and transport himself back downstairs.

“Levioso,” He cast on the Ashwinder that threw Nate out of the window, followed quickly by a “Depulso,” knocking the lanky thug back and throwing him into the last standing Ashwinder who was trying to pick Nathan up to either get away with him or use him as a human shield. Sebastian jumped down from the higher level as Ominis ran forward to reach the downed teen.

“Confringo!” Seb cast out to the Ashwinder who tried to use Nate as a shield, refusing to let him try to get back up which he was attempting. He refused to let these bastards have a chance to hurt his friend again.

IV

Nathan’s breath hitched as a pair of footsteps entered the room below and hurried to the frog statues. The croak of them exiting the frog came from the upper level, but not the room he was hiding in, he let out a breath thinking he was safe, the Ashwinders hadn’t found him. But then there were more footfalls, someone else was being chased and used this ruin as a hiding place as well. How ironic, out of all the places in the Forbidden Forest others were using the same ruin as Nathan to hide.

“Ey, ey, that’s twice we’ve seen the kid running round here and suddenly disappearing, what’s with this place?” He heard the voice of an Ashwinder that chased him earlier, the slap of wood followed as he must have stomped his foot.

“These frog statues-” Please, please don’t figure out the frog statues – Nathan begged in his head. He slowly rose to his feet, the brick clutched firmly in his hands.

“Those ugly mugs! Should destroy them just for existing,” Yes, please, destroy the statues so they won’t find him.

“You will do no such thing, you can use them to teleport from one frog to another,” No! Nathan cried internally.

“Look see,” he heard the sound of stone being smacked but thankfully he didn’t see anyone appear in the room he was hiding in, “so these two middle ones go to each other, which is stupid but at least we’ve got a fifty-fifty choice now.” Nathan felt a tear escape. What could he do with a broken wand and a brick? His hands were torn up from the amount of times he tripped over an uncovered root. His fight was weak at best.

“So, left or right?” He prayed that they would go for the right one.

“I’ve got a good feeling,” He heard one of them slap the stone frog and with a croak the lanky Ashwinder appeared in his room, his back faced him as he had pushed himself into the corner behind the frog. Nathan slowly raised the brick, it would have been a perfect strike if the bastard hadn’t turned around. As he brought the brick down the Ashwinder had a chance to move out of the way and grab Nathan’s wrist, he twisted it making the teen drop his only weapon from the pain. “Got you you little fucker!” 

Nathan cried out, he tried to use his other hand to punch the thug only for his to grab the other wrist.

“Let go of me!” He yelled as he tried to rip his wrist free. Nate tried kicking out and stomping on the thug’s feet. The Ashwinder scoffed at the attempts to escape and dragged the boy to the open window. 

“I’ve got the kid!” The thug yelled at the two below, giving them time to leave to ruin and grab the kid. Without a second thought, the thug threw Nathan out the window. The ground was coming towards him fast he could only let out a yelp as he hit the ground hard. 

“We got you now you little shit!” The voice was muffled as he tried to get his senses back to himself. 

“Think Rookwood will give us a promotion for this?” They truly were heartless, they were talking about climbing the ranks to capture and kidnap him.

“He has to, we caught the kid!” There was a large boot lodged in his gut knocking the wind out of his lungs and making him curl up to protect himself from any future pain, “that was for my mates you took out.”

“Nathan!” Someone was calling his name, the Ashwinders didn’t know his name – he didn’t think they did anyway. He closed his eyes hoping whatever this was would be over soon. There was an abrupt sound of an explosion near him, he could feel the licks of heat against his skin from the proximity of the blast. Then the other thug was trying to lift him, trying to move him – he curled up further making himself harder to move. The hands flew off him as something whizzed above him and he was dropped back to the ground. 

Loud footsteps rapidly approached his prone self, he thought about attempting to crawl away, but the sad thought inside was that he didn’t even have the energy to do that.

“Nathan?” He recognised that voice, it was a friendly voice, “Nate?” He peeled his eyes open and met the beautiful unseeing eyes of his friend Ominis. He could kiss the boy if he wasn’t in so much pain, he looked around himself and could see Sebastian – Sebastian his amazing friend, standing guard over them with his wand out ready to cast a spell at a moment’s notice.

“Ominis?” His voice was raspy from disuse – even Nate winced when he heard it.

“Can you stand? We need to get out of here.” He nodded. Feeling brave now that he had his friends with him, he uncurled himself – he got to his knees before his ribs screamed in protest, ready to collapse again. He didn’t hit the floor, an arm wrapped around his middle, settling on his waist and his other arm was slung around the blonde’s shoulders. “We’ll do this together.” He could cry at his friend’s words, he probably was crying – his face felt wet.

“Thank you - thank you for coming after me,” Nate muttered.

“Sebastian-” 

“I know – lead the way – I’ve got our backs.” Sebastian’s voice was short, itching for a fight.

Ominis had his wand out in front of him, blinking red and showing him more than they could see in the darkness. He led them away from the main path – it was too easy to follow. Sebastian behind them called out spell after spell as the monstrous hoods followed them, he would not let any of them hurt the ones he loved. The sounds of their fight must have called others to their location.

The edge of the forest was visible now, but they didn’t stop for a moment, the price was too high. Even after the honking daffodils announced their break through the forest edge they didn’t stop. They wouldn’t be safe until they were on the grounds of Hogwarts.

They had lost a few of the Ashwinders in the forest, running off the path had assured that. But there were still too many chasing them for Sebastian’s comfort – don’t get him wrong he was a skilled duelist, but while running not many of his spells were hitting the moving targets. Their only chance was Hogwarts.

Getting to the gates of Hogwarts was a mission in itself. They were only teenagers – only children and yet they were fighting off grown men, stopping them from kidnapping their friend. Nathan’s feet fumbled beneath him, slowing down their escape to the school – Ominis could only tighten his grip on the teen, his hand was red hot on his waist and Nate’s shirt had ridden up under his hold that he could feel the heat coming off Nate skin, he was sure that his grip would leave a bruise.

“We’re nearly there.” The blonde called out as the brunette cast a protective shield around them. The gates were only a few yards away, as soon as they were in the wards would protect them – they would be safe.

They crossed the gates. 

They practically collapsed on the grass as the Ashwinder’s spells, curses, hexes and charms bounced off the wards harmlessly. They were safe.

V

Sebastian finally felt safe enough to take stock of his friends - Ominis despite being out of breath from running was completely fine and unscathed. Nathan on the other hand.

He crouched down in front of the teen, gently taking his face in his hand and using the other hand to keep his balance on the wet grassy ground. He turned Nate’s face to the side to examine the damage – he had cuts from the scuffle with the Ashwinder and probably from the fall, his hands were torn up, there were nicks in his shirt and trousers probably scratches and light cuts there, his feet were the worse that Sebastian could see. Blood and mud covered both of his feet with the lack of shoes he will question that later. 

“We need to get you to nurse Blainey,” He didn’t realise how close their faces were together until he felt Nathan’s uneven breaths brushing his cheek. Looking up into the teen’s forest-green eyes he couldn’t notice how wide they were.

“N-no, please – please I-I don’t want to go to the nurse again,” Nathan begged. His voice was barely above a whisper but both boys could hear him clear as day.

“Nate you’re hurt-” Ominis started to plead.

“I know – I know, please, I can’t go there again.” How could Sebastian deny him – tears were freely falling down Nate’s cheeks, and his eyes were bright red and puffy. He was scared.

“We’ll go back to our dorm room and Ominis will check your ribs to make sure they are not broken, yeah?” Sebastain spoke firmly – taking the lead in the situation.

“Thank you – thank you.” Ominis helped Nathan back up, this time Sebastian was on the other side of him, both boys taking a side of Nathan’s waist to support him and slung his arms around his shoulder. They carried him to their dorm room.

It wasn’t exactly early in the evening but it was late enough that the Slytherin common room wouldn’t be flooded with people. The younger years would most likely be in bed, while the older years might be milling around to talk with their friends. The boys were glad for this fact as the older years never really took much notice of years younger than themselves unless they were a prefect. So they managed to silently almost invisibly get through the common room and to their dorm room, virtually if it wasn’t for Ernie Potter. 

They got Nathan situated on the edge of his bed, Sebastian quickly detached himself from his side to go grab a glass of water and a damp clean cloth to help clean him up.

“Shirt off please, I need to check your ribs.” Onimis directed as he peeled himself from Nathan’s side. He turned him so his back was facing the headboard so the blonde could sit in front of him but also so Nathan’s feet could hang off the bed comfortably.

Nathan nodded to Ominis’s command. His hands went to his buttons but his hands were shaking so much that the buttons kept slipping out of his fingers when they got near the holes – he let out a frustrated cry for himself and brought his hands up to try again only to be stopped by lovely slender fingers.

“Here, let me help,” Ominis lowered Nathan’s hands so they restored at his sides and Ominis brought his hands up to begin working on the teen’s buttons.

Sebastian choked when he entered the room again. He did not expect to come in to find Ominis helping undress Nate – it was quite a sight to behold in his opinion. But he didn’t have time for those thoughts now.

He set the clean cloth in the basin of water and wrung it out, he was back by their side just as Nate’s shirt came off revealing his bruised and blood-speckled chest. Nathan let out a strangled gasp, turning his sight away, fresh tears filled his eyes and he covered his mouth to suppress a sob.

“I’m sorry, this might hurt a little,” The blonde apologised as he began to prod and feel his ribs. Sebastian decided to take the chance to try and do something comforting, he took Nathan’s face in his hand again and began to gently wipe away the dried blood and dirt – he kept his eyes on Sebastian but winced in pain now and again when the blonde would brush a bruise.

“Good news, nothing is broken,” Ominis took his hands away from his friend’s torso just as a knock on the door sounded.

“I’ll get it,” Seb uttered and he released Nathan’s gaze and slid off the bed.

A sob finally broke out from the battered teen, Ominis didn’t hesitate to pull him into a hug. Nate rested his head on the blonde’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around his back clutching the back of the older teen’s robe. Sobs wracked his body getting louder, he let out his fear, his terror, his vulnerability, and all Ominis could do was wrap his arms around him – rubbing his back hoping it would bring him some sort kind of comfort.

Seb opened the door only to be faced with an uncertain worried Ernie Potter. Seb only raised an eyebrow at him, both boys were ignoring the diluted blood on the brunette’s hands.

“I – erm – I saw – I well heard-” Ernie mumbled unsure how to speak.

“Spit it out, Potter,”

“Is Nathan ok?”

“He’ll be fine-”

“I only ask ‘cause I saw you and Ominis carrying him in and well - is there anything I can do to help?” Ernie asked earnestly. Sebastian signed and looked behind him, he watched as Nathan sobbed violently into Ominis’s shoulder with the blonde running his fingers through his dark hair. Nathan hadn’t wanted to go to the nurse but he needed healing physically.

“Not unless you know any healing spells-” Seb started but Ernie interrupted with determination.

“Leo knows Episkey, I’m sure he would help – no questions asked.”

“No questions asked?” Seb asked hesitantly. He was sure Nate would hate anyone to see him like this, but needs must, “Fine, but if I tell you to get out you get out.”

“Deal,” Ernie blurted as he ran off to his dorm room. He was back in a few minutes dragging a sleepy-looking Leo Malfoy by his arm.

“What’s this about Sallow?” Leo queried – annoyed that he had been dragged out of bed.

“You know Episkey?” He countered with a question of his own.

“Yes, I volunteered at St Mungo’s for a while, the nurse there taught me the spell,” Leo answered now worried why a healing spell would be needed.

“Good - good, just don’t ask any questions.” Sebastian gave them pointed looks before letting them into the room.

Nate’s cries had died down, he was no longer loudly sobbing but his face was still buried in Ominis’s shoulder. And if the blonde had it his way he would never let go, keep his friend – one of the people he had come to love – protected for as long as he could. He glared as the other three boys approached knowing Nathan wouldn’t be happy with this.

“Sebastian no-” He tried to stop the brunette.

“He’s hurt, he won’t let us take him to the nurse and Malfoy knows a healing spell.” Sebastain tried to reason.

“What on earth happened?” Leo muttered as he took stock of the new fifth year. He winced as he saw Nate’s feet—they must be so painful to put any pressure on.

“No – no - please-” Ominis hushed him as he carded his fingers through his raven hair.

“Leo is going to help – let him help, please? For me?” the blonde muttered and Nate couldn’t say no to Ominis, he nodded his head and pulled away from his shoulder revealing his puffy red eyes and sort of clean of blood face. He heard Leo suck in a breath but didn’t dare look up. Ominis started pulling away to let Leo get a better look at the injuries but was stopped by a hand in his pleading with him not to go any further. “I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.” He squeezed the other’s hand.

“Looks like the worst is the feet—let me—Scourgify.” Leo waved his wand and the blood and dirt that lightly covered him was washed away, showing the full damage. “Not the worst I’ve seen – you should have seen Timothy’s feet after his first quidditch match,” Leo remarked trying to lighten the mood. Though the room remainder silent, Nathan was miles away too ashamed of himself, Ominis was focused on Nate and keeping him grounded, and Sebastian was standing behind Leo biting his lip now that he saw the extent of the damage. “This shouldn’t hurt but you will ache for a few days – Episkey,” Nate’s skin knitted itself back together, the nicks, cuts and blisters were barely visible, and the bruises had faded to the final yellow stages. 

“Thank you,” Sebastain breathed a sigh of relief.

“No worries, we’ll leave you to it – come find me if you need anything else.” Leo tugged his black-haired friend out of the room – both of them keeping their promise of no questions asked. Ernie waved bye to them as he gently shut the door behind him leaving the three boys in silence.

“Let’s get you comfy,” Ominis spoke, he waved his wand and his and Nathan’s clothes were replaced with their pyjamas. He lead the black-haired boy to lie down.

“You’re not going to leave me?” Nate asked – his voice was shaking on the verge of breaking into tears once again.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Ominis laid down with him allowing Nathan to clutch the front of his bed shirt, “Get over here Sebastain,”

“I – erm-”

“Please?” his earnest forest green eyes were pleading to his chocolate brown ones and once again he found it impossible to say no to the teen.

“Alright,” With a wave of his wand, he was in his pyjamas and crawling into bed behind Nathan. Ominis guarded his front whispering sweet nothings to the boy and leaving delicate kisses on his hands, while Sebastian protected the other side, cuddling up to both boys to make sure they were safe and unharmed.

They could deal with the fallout tomorrow.