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Chapter Text

Without preamble, and with eggs already in his mouth, Alex turns to Lando and asks, “So? The new kid?”

The morning of the first day of term, the Great Hall is packed with students trying to get a quick breakfast, and Lando’s sandwiched between Alex and George, as per usual. 

“What about him?” Lando shoots back, grumbling as his cup of orange juice resolutely refuses to turn into coffee, at the same time that George says, “Which one?”

Alex frowns. “The one that interrupted the-”

“Oh! That one!” Lando cuts in. “Giving us a bad name, I’m telling you, he should’ve been sorted into Gryffindor if he was going to piss off Headmaster Horner–”

“Wait,” George says, looking between them, “So not the American? Because I thought he was sorted into–”

“No, no,” Alex starts, “Weren’t you paying attention? End of the sorting ceremony, Horner left for a minute and came back with Professor Webber and some guy. Floppy hair, bruise on his face? Got sorted into Slytherin?”

“A 1st-year that got lost?” George tries, but Lando shakes his head. 

“He was a 5th-year for sure,” Lando says, “the last guy that got sorted.”

“I swear, something’s up with him,” Alex adds, but Lando just rolls his eyes. 

“Who even cares about some random 5th-year transfer? Why don’t we talk about something actually interesting, like predictions for Crossed Wands or–”

“No one wants to hear about your little illegal dueling club, Lando,” George huffs, with the tone of someone that has nearly given up on a long-standing argument. And then, turning to Alex, “Besides, he’s a Slytherin, so you two would know better than I.”

“Speaking of which, you’re not, so why don’t you go back to your own table of nerds and focus on your own house?” Lando snaps, grumbling head boy into his plate of waffles. 

Alex just says something like “Feisty, today,” and George just laughs, and on the morning of the first day of term, Lando senses, with a sort of tugging feeling in his chest, that this year is going to be nothing like he’d been expecting. 

He’s immediately proven right. 

All morning, all Lando hears are rumors about Slytherin’s newest addition, ranging from sort-of odd to downright absurd. As he walks to the Great Hall for lunch, he lists them out in his head. 

Got a Ministry escort to Hogwarts.

In the Protected Person’s Service with a secret identity.

Is a Legilimens.

Was attacked by a dragon on his way to school.

And so on and so forth. Lando’s sick of it. No one, no one even cares what he did over summer break, that he beat Charles’ record at the South Coast broom-racing course by 2-tenths, that he and Fewtrell took a trip to see a Caerphilly Catapults match, or that he’s basically grown 2 cm. 3 if he stands up straighter!

No, everything is all– what’s his name? Oliver? Orion? Oswald? Something like that – it’s all Oh, did you hear? He fought off a Wyvern with half a wand! Doesn’t he look so mysterious, showing up injured? He saved Professor Webber’s life! He’s on the run from the Ministry of Magic! He’s got such a sexy Australian accent!

Well– that last one was Daniel, and he was mostly sarcastic, being one of the only other Australians at Hogwarts, but still. By lunch, Lando’s had enough. 

He finds his friends quickly in the chaos of the Great Hall, taking a seat next to Daniel and dodging slightly when he splays his arms wide – clearly in the middle of a dramatic retelling of a round of Summoner's Court. 

“–And then he was like, ‘you can’t use your ball to knock your opponents out cold,’ which is such bull, we’ve been playing it that way since we were 1st-years, but I guess Professor Vowels doesn’t want any more paperwork from the Infirmary– Lando!”

He turns to see Lando grinning sheepishly, and hooks an arm around his shoulders. “I haven’t seen you in ages, man–”

“You saw me an hour ago, when you were heading to Charms,” Lando points out, but he grins anyways, reaching over to steal some chips from Daniel’s plate. 

“But before that, I hadn’t seen you in ages!” Daniel chirps, unbothered. “By the way, dear Alexander and I found you a new roommate, since Fewtrell’s taking the semester off–”

“He’s not taking it off,” Lando cuts him off, voice sharp, “He’s just– he’s got an apprenticeship.” 

“Yeah, and medical leave, same difference,” Daniel shrugs, missing how Lando flinches a bit. 

Just as Lando’s about to ask Wait, who’s the new roommate, Carlos shows up, quaffle under his arm, and the thread of conversation is lost. He forgets about it when Carlos claps him on the shoulder anyway, and turns his attention to the story Carlos is telling about his family back in Madrid, and how he had spent the summer swimming, tanning, and, annoyingly, growing about 2 cm, 3 if he’s not slouching.

Lando’s just about forgotten about the new student by the time his Defense Against the Dark Arts class rolls around that afternoon, and he’s joking with Carlos about something or other when he steps through the door of Professor Alonso’s classroom. 

Some students are already sparring, Verstappen squaring up against a Hufflepuff – Yuki, Lando thinks – and Lando watches them drop into dueling stances as he makes his way over to his usual seat. 

He’s stopped in his tracks when he sees someone already seated there. Floppy brown hair, green robes, bruise on his cheekbone. It’s the fucking new guy. 

“You've got to be kidding me,” Lando groans, and Carlos shoots him a questioning glance, before spotting the issue. 

“Ah, it’s–” Carlos starts, looking delighted at the excuse to introduce himself, like the extrovert he is. 

“I know it’s the transfer student, Os-whatever,” Lando grumbles, and Carlos wheels around, brows furrowing, but Lando continues, rambling. “Thinks he can just do whatever he wants, because he’s new and he killed a dragon on the way here–” at this, Carlos’ eyebrows raise, mouth dropping open in surprise, “ –and because he looks all roguish with his face like that and he has a ‘sexy accent.’”

At this, Carlos lets out a surprised laugh. “Mate, what?” he asks, grabbing Lando by the shoulder. “Have you even spoken to– nevermind. Let's just sit over here, yeah?” 

He guides the two of them over to a different set of seats, a few rows back, and Lando plops down on the bench, defeated. 

Any further conversation is cut off by a loud crack as an old dragon skull mounted on the ceiling is severed by a stray Stupefy and starts to fall down, toward Verstappen. 

Everyone freezes, and then–

“Levioso."  

Professor Fernando Alonso, former Unspeakable at the Ministry of Magic, current Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, Slytherin Head of House, and arguably the most intimidating figure on Hogwarts staff. 

He grins, stepping down the stairs from his office, and floats the skull back up to the rest of the suspended skelton. “Careful, Tsunoda,” He says, cheery, “You are replaceable, but my trophies are not.”

He motions for the students to take their seats, and as they scramble to get spots on the benches, he squints for a moment at the new student. 

“Piastri,” he says, frowning, and Lando watches intently as he nods jerkily. 

“Professor,” the guy – Piastri – says, uncertainly. 

Professor Alonso regards him for a moment, and then nods to himself, turning back to the rest of the class. 

Lando glances at Carlos, mouthing what was that?, but Carlos just shrugs, equally lost.

“Today, you will be learning Levioso,” Alonso announces, to a muted chorus of groans. “I do not trust you with anything else. And do not break my things,” he adds, staring directly at Yuki, who shrinks into his seat a bit. 

“Why’s he got us practicing 1st-year shit,” Lando grumbles, standing up and drawing his wand to practice Levioso-ing the feathers Alonso’s conjured for them. He freezes when he sees the look on Carlos’s face: muted horror.

“That sounds like you’re volunteering,” he hears behind him, the deep Spanish accent that haunts his occasional nightmares. Oh, for the love of–

So that’s how Lando ends up here, standing on the elevated dueling platform that had risen from the floor after he’d been picked as clown of the day in the circus that is their Defense class. At the other end of the platform, having seemingly irked Alonso simply by existing, stands Piastri. Great. Lovely. At least it’ll be an easy win.

Lando drops into a dueling stance, legs spread a bit for balance, wand gripped in his right hand. Across from him, Piastri does the same. 

“I want a clean duel,” Alonso says, smiling like a man that’s signed countless Infirmary waivers and plans to sign countless more. And then, because he’s evil, he adds, “Detention for whoever loses. House points would be useless, with the same house.”

Around them, the other students take a few steps back, murmurs rippling through the crowd. 

Just like Crossed Wands, Lando thinks to himself, taking a steadying breath, let him come to me.  

“Levioso,” Piastri casts, but Lando doesn’t have to move far to dodge it; it swerves a bit left, off-course. Odd, but whatever. The next hit, a basic cast, nearly gets him if not for a last-minute Protego. A group of students near him shout encouragement, though whether it's for him or for his opponent he can’t tell. 

As the purple wisps of the shielding spell fade, he notices Piastri’s shifted his weight to his back foot – rookie mistake – like he was bracing for something. Something up with his wand, maybe? Lando takes the opportunity at face-value, stepping forward and breathing out a Flipendo that, strictly, may not be allowed in a classroom duel, but Alonso’s never frowned upon creativity. 

Standing next to Carlos, Verstappen leans in. “Do you think Lando’s throwing it?” he asks, “he’s hesitating a bit, on his casts.”

Carlos shakes his head, frowning. “I think he is… put off. But not throwing, no.” 

Piastri dodges the Flipendo by a hair, but side-stepping throws him off-balance. Got him. Lando pulls his wand back to cast Levioso, but he’s stopped short when his feet are swept out from under him.

It had been a flash of red, a basic fucking cast, but it throws him back a good few steps, and when he shifts his weight to cast another Protego, he realizes his error. 

Piastri regains his footing just as Lando loses his, closer to the end of the platform than he’d thought – or the cast had more force than he’d been expecting? – and he grits his teeth as he tips toward the floor, balance thrown off just too far to be recoverable. He hits the floor with a punched-out breath. 

Fuck. 

Gasps ripple through the classroom, and the whispers reach a crescendo as Lando falls off the platform – he’s known for being a good duelist, generally, one of the best in recent years – so to watch him lose is a spectacle. 

He barely even registers the hand Piastri offers, brushing him off as he nurses his wounded pride and aching back. Lando sulks back to his seat, Carlos giving him a consoling clap on the shoulder, and they both pretend not to hear Verstappen laughing.

“He’ll get over it,” Verstappen tells Lando’s opponent, “he always does. I’m Max, by the way. It’s Oscar, right?”

Oscar gives him a halfhearted smile, accepting a handshake but glancing uncertainly at where Lando and Carlos are standing, watching them. 

The rest of the classroom falls back into order around them, but Lando keeps watching, hears Verstappen invite this new… nobody to Crossed Wands, and almost scoffs. 

Exclusive and unsanctioned dueling organization, Lando overhears him explaining, and when Oscar nods, he finally turns away. 

“It will be good to have some new blood,” Carlos offers halfheartedly, “we are at uneven numbers for the bracket now, since–”

“I know,” Lando cuts him off sharply. “It’s fine.”

And it is, really. Lando doesn’t care that this random 5th-year transfer has dropped into the middle of everything he cares about and messed it all up. He’ll be old news soon, get put in his place by one of the other duelists, or by Lando himself, and everything will go back to the way it used to be. 

Surely. 

By dinner, Lando’s mood has improved drastically. He hasn’t seen Owen or whatever his name is since Defense, and Daniel is regaling them with stories of his summer in Perth. All's right with the world.

“Wait, Lando, how were the rest of your classes?” Daniel asks, cutting himself off mid-sentence and turning to him.

Before Lando can answer, Carlos, with a gleeful grin on his face, cuts in. “You should ask him how his duel in Alonso’s class went,” he says, ignoring the murderous glare Lando sends him.

“Ooh, dueling on day one! Exciting, how was it?” Daniel perks up, nearly planting an elbow in his plate of mashed potatoes as he leans across the table to steal one of George’s green beans.

George swats at his hand halfheartedly as Lando sighs, only slightly exaggerating the slump of his shoulders. 

“I hate this new kid,” he says sullenly, “dunno what scandalous favors he paid Webber to get transferred in. He’ll be out by the end of the week, I’m telling you.”

Daniel grins, nodding along slowly, as Carlos rolls his eyes.

“Ignore him,” Carlos says, “he is just mad he lost. The guy hit him with a– what, a basic cast? and he went flying. Incredible, I’m telling you.”

Lando splutters, trying to defend himself – it wasn’t the spell, I literally just tripped, he shouldn’t have won off that – as the rest of their little group breaks out into a round of laughter. 

Alex appears at last, suspiciously late and looking vaguely guilty, but before Lando can ask, Daniel claps him on the shoulder and starts filling his plate with various cuts of meat. He asks Alex something under his breath, and Alex nods. 

“What are you two–” Lando starts, but Daniel cuts him off. 

“So! Quidditch tryouts for all houses at the end of the month,” he starts, over-enthusiastic. “I’d better see all of you there, nobody sleeping through their scheduled time slot this year, alright?” he elbows Lando, who scowls halfheartedly, whispering already forgotten. 

“I– Max said he’d wake me up! It wasn’t my fault–”

By the time Lando makes it back to his room, Alex seeing him off in the hallway with a pat on the back, he’s practically dead on his feet. He pushes the door open, heaving a sigh, the lighthearted smile on his face dropping to something more neutral. Exhausted. He trails his fingers along the bars of his birdcage, as Charlie, his tawny owl, regards him curiously. 

Lando drops his bag on his bed and freezes, something in the back of his mind, instinctive, telling him he’s not alone. When he turns, Piastri is looking at him. Lando reaches for his wand. 

“Hey,” he starts uncertainly, but Lando’s not looking at him anymore, his eyes are on the half-unpacked duffel bag that’s laid on Max’s– the spare bed. 

“The hell are you doing here,” Lando says, not quite leveling his wand but certainly holding it with intent.

“Daniel said–” he starts, and Lando groans. Of course. Of course he would fucking–

“–And Alex offered? Or said you had a spare bed, but I thought–”

–volunteer my room, without asking me of course–

“–I guess I shouldn’t have assumed, but I figured they’d asked you first,”

–Not even a heads up? Daniel, he fucking. Said something at lunch, didn’t he–

“–And I can leave, if you want–” Oscar says, and Lando finally tunes into what he’s saying. Yes– yes , please leave , is his immediate reaction, but for the first time the look on Oscar’s face is… unsettling, rather than irritating. The calm, assured confidence from their duel is gone. The carefully blank mask he’d had when Alonso had picked on him is– it’s there, in parts, but fractured. The bruise doesn’t make Oscar look intriguing anymore, it just looks like a bruise. Proof he’s been hurt. He looks almost worried. 

“I didn’t realize…” he continues, more quietly, “I’m… sorry. I can go,” he trails off, voice getting quieter as Lando sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. 

When Oscar opens his mouth like he’s going to keep apologizing, Lando holds a hand up. “Stop,” he says, “just. Stop.”

Oscar shuts his mouth, sparing half a glance for the wand he’d discarded on the side-table, and tilts his head at Lando in a way that reminds him vaguely of the koalas he’d seen in the London Zoo last time he’d gone to the city. 

“You’re moving in?” Lando asks, after the silence stretches on a bit too long, “here?”

“Um,” Oscar says, “Yes? If that’s alright with you?” 

He keeps glancing around, like he’s trying to deduce the fastest escape route. Lando’s gaze falls to the bag on the bed again. 

Lando takes a step closer, not directly answering. Oscar looks like he wants to take a step back, feet shifting on the cold stone floor, but stands his ground. 

“Where’s the rest of your stuff, then?” Lando asks, leaning in a bit to peer at the items strewn on the bed. Some robes, a few books. Barely anything, certainly not enough for a whole year. He knows without having to look up that Oscar’s likely glancing over to his side of the room – wardrobe so full that it can barely close properly, knickknacks on almost every surface, piles of books and scrolls on his desk, on the floor by his bed. 

“It’s, uhh– I’m s’posed to get most of it tomorrow,” Oscar gets out, like he’s hoping that will be the end of it. It strikes Lando that this is probably the most they’ve spoken to each other, seeing as there wasn’t exactly much talking during the duel. 

“You only brought a duffle bag with you?” Lando scoffs, with the confidence of someone that always has to bring a minimum of one large trunk and three other bags. 

“Well, no,” he says, hesitating. Lando glances back up at him. “It was eaten by the dragon, I think.”

Eaten–

“Eaten,” Lando repeats, “By. The dragon.”

“Yep.”

“...Seriously?”

Oscar blinks, like he’s half-surprised Lando’s questioning his bullshit – “Yes?” he responds, “Why would I lie about that–”

“No, I mean.” Lando starts, and then heaves a sigh, stepping back. Gives a baleful look to Charlie, who flutters his feathers and turns away, unimpressed. Traitor. “The whole dragon thing?” he continues, “You actually killed a dragon on your way here?”

Oscar tries to cut in – something about how he didn’t, but it almost killed him and he escaped with a  portkey of some sort – but Lando’s not having it.

“Honestly,” he says, turning back to his bed and starting to unpack the books he’d gotten that day, “I don’t even care.”

Oscar bites his lip, brow furrowing slightly in irritation, but Lando doesn’t catch it as he continues. 

“I don’t care what happened to the rest of your stuff, I just–” he groans, running both his hands through his curls and tugging, feeling the pressure of a headache building under his skull. 

Oscar’s eyes follow the movement, but Lando doesn’t catch that either, screwing his eyes shut. 

“Whatever. Sure, fine, you can stay here,” Lando grumbles, shedding his robe and dropping his wand on the bedside table, “Since that’s what… Daniel and Alex told you.”

They go through their routines silently, Lando messing with some vials of various hair products, Oscar unpacking the rest of his sparse belongings and putting them in his wardrobe. As soon as he can manage to, Lando slips under the covers, quick to draw the green silk curtains around the posters of his bed and shut Oscar out. 

When Oscar turns to glance at him, all he can see is Lando’s silhouette, curled up. Smaller than he seemed, earlier. He turns back to his things, letting out a silent breath. 

Lando’s sleep that night is fitful, disjointed. Flashes of green light, the flap of a great dragon’s wing, metal machinery creaking. Brown hair highlighted gold in flickering candlelight. When he wakes in the middle of the night, the room feels colder than usual.

Chapter Text

Oscar’s dragged from a dreamless sleep by the hand on his shoulder. 

“-scar. Hey, Oscar,” A voice is repeating, but he can’t quite place it. Drowsiness sticks to him, weighing him down. He groans as he turns over, trying to tug his blankets over his head and shut out whoever’s trying to wake him.

He hears a squawk, a whispered, “Just leave it here, he’s asleep,” and another squawk, followed by a muttered curse. 

“Your owl bit me, mate.”

Ah. Lando. His new roommate. Right. 

Oscar sits up slowly, blinking the sleep out of his eyes as the world comes into focus. 

“Not my owl,” he croaks out, throat scratchy and dry. The owl fluttering around Lando’s head is, truthfully, not his; he’s a dark-brown Australian Boobook, and he’s Mark’s. Named Saxon, one of several that Mark likes to keep in the Owlery. 

Oscar rolls his shoulders back, stretching his arms over his head. Lando’s staring at him, he thinks, but his brain’s not fully online yet, so he doesn’t linger on it. 

Saxon drops a letter in his lap, addressed in a familiar scrawl. 

Oscar, 

Attached is a list of supplies that need to be replaced. 

Head to Hogsmeade (North of the Castle) after today’s classes and stop by the following shops to pick up your supplies:

• Ollivander’s – (New) wand. You can return the lender to me when you’re done.

• Tomes & Scrolls – Spellcrafts. I’ve given Tom the list of ones you’ll need for this term.
• Bott Potions – Potions. Ask Valtteri for some spare wiggenweld, too, if he has any. I’m certain he does.

When you’re done, stop by my office, and we can discuss extracurricular assignments. 

Best,

Mark

By the time Oscar looks up from scanning the letter, Lando’s retreated back to his side of the room, and Saxon is nowhere to be seen. No need to reply, then. 

Checking the clock, he sees it’s – six? Mark really had to send him an owl at six in the morning. Of course. Groaning, Oscar tosses the letter onto his bedside table and rolls over, pulling the covers back over his head. 

That afternoon finds Oscar strolling under the wooden arches leading into Hogsmeade, dodging a cart full of fluxweed and reaching down to pet a stray cat that weaves between his legs. A bell jingles as he steps over the threshold of his first stop, Tomes & Scrolls, and the proprietor looks up to greet him. 

“Ah, hello,” the man says – middle-aged, clearly British - with a kind and friendly air. “I’m Tom Stallard, welcome to Tomes & Scrolls. Here for spellcrafts, I assume?”

Oscar nods, stepping up to the desk where Tom is standing. “I’m Oscar,” he starts, and Tom smiles kindly. 

“Yes, Mark’s protégé. He said you’d be needing a few things. Give me one moment, please,” he says, and then disappears to the back of the shop. 

Oscar rocks back on his heels, glancing around. It’s a cozy two-room storefront, walls covered in shelves of books. The whole place smells like old paper, like his dad’s study back in Melbourne. He takes a deep breath in, closing his eyes. 

“Here we are,” Tom says, snapping Oscar out of his reverie. He’s reappeared with a stack of papers in hand, which he holds out for Oscar to take. “Spellcrafts for a potting table and a potioneering station,” he declares, “the simplest and yet most useful things to learn to conjure. You should be all set for Professor Hulkenberg’s class.”

Oscar thanks him and steps back out onto the street, the bell tinkling above him as he goes. Leafing through the conjuring recipes, he doesn’t notice the flash of green robes ahead of him in the crowd. 

Oh, for fuck’s– God forbid a guy try to have a nice, peaceful afternoon with his mates. Lando groans under his breath, glancing over his shoulder again to confirm – Yeah, that’s Oscar. Damn. 

He claps Carlos and George on the shoulder, clearing his throat. “I think we should head to Bott’s, lads. They’ve got a deal on Maxima potions, or something,” he says, steering them to the left, towards the side street leading to Bott Potions. 

Alex shoots him a look. “You a big potioneer all of a sudden?” he asks, narrowing his eyes, but he follows regardless, and Lando breathes a sigh of relief when he’s sure Oscar’s out of sight. 

“Something like that,” he mumbles, running a hand through his hair. “Just want to be prepared, new year and all.” 

Alex doesn’t look convinced, but doesn’t press it either, instead looping an arm around Lando’s shoulders and reaching over to mess his curls up. “‘Course,” he says, and Lando’s too busy squawking about his hair to see the critical glance Alex casts behind them, searching the crowd. 

Oscar tucks his spellcraft papers into a pocket of his robes as he steps into Ollivander’s. “Hello?” he calls hesitantly, and then jumps when a man appears behind the counter. 

“Hello!” he chirps, holding out a hand for Oscar to shake, “I’m Will! The resident Wandmaker. How can I help you?”

“Will… Ollivander?” Oscar asks, thinking of the black-and-gold lettering on the shop’s facade.

“Ah, well, Buxton, technically,” Will corrects, shaking Oscar’s hand enthusiastically. “The Ollivander line is on my mum’s side, but my nephew is really young, still, so I’m–”

“Right,” Oscar cuts him off, “I’m here for a wand.”  

“Of course! The wand is the wizard’s most important tool,” Will says, stepping around the counter to browse the various wand-boxes on the shelves. The whole place is nearly claustrophobic, Oscar thinks. Floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with all manner of boxes, big and small, red and black and green and wooden, some with dark leather or reptilian scales, some lined in silver metal or decorated with golden carvings. How Will keeps track of them all, he has no idea. 

Will is humming to himself, pulling boxes off the shelf seemingly at random. “You know,” he says, not waiting for Oscar to respond, “Wands can only be made out of wood from trees that house magic!”

“...Yes?” Oscar says slowly. He learned that in primary school back in Australia. Everyone knows that. You can’t just pick up any random twig and make it a wand. 

“Ah! Here,” Will says, ignoring him. He turns around, holding out a sleek green case. “Powerful core, 10.5 inches… try this one.”

Oscar flips the lid open to reveal a smooth, slightly curved walnut wand with bronze ornamentation around the hilt. It feels warm when he reaches for it. 

“Dragon heartstring,” Will adds, shutting the box, “The core of a wand is important – it’s the innermost part.”

Oscar gives it an experimental swish, frowning when nothing happens. Trying again nets him only a few sparks coming out the end. 

“Oh, well,” Will says, taking the wand from him and slipping it back into the box. “Here, try another.”

They continue like this through several more wands, with Will offering comments like “The swishiness of a wand depends on how bendy it is” and “Wandmakers in other countries use different woods, because they have different trees.” The last wand Oscar tries nearly explodes the two of them into fireworks before Will hastily snatches it from his hands. 

“This is quite tricky,” Will muses, as Oscar sighs, glancing around. Maybe I’d be better off sticking with the one Mark lent me, he thinks, just before his eyes catch on a plain white box on a shelf near the floor. 

He crouches down, ignoring Will flitting about behind him, and pulls it carefully from the pile of boxes above it. The plaque on the side of the box, in simple black letters, reads Y-PF-10.5. Oscar’s fingers buzz with static as he flips the latch open on the case. 

This one, he thinks, before he even lifts it out of the box. 

He stands, feeling the heft of the wand in his palm. The wood is lightweight, a pale color that reminds him of the sands of Australia’s beaches. The wand itself is plain, a small notch on the hilt that his index finger fits in perfectly and another dip beside it for his thumb, but it’s otherwise unmarked. 

The lamp on the counter flickers under its glass shade, and Will looks up. 

There’s something ethereal about it, almost reverent, when a wand connects to its wielder. The candles above the doorway snuff out, leaving the only light in the shop the one emitting softly from the tip of Oscar’s wand. Something ruffles his hair every so slightly, like the spirit of the wand itself is saying hello. 

“Well,” Will says quietly, “what did you find, then?”

Oscar hands him the box without looking up, still admiring the smooth, polished wood and the way it tints whiter in the light of the window. 

Will sucks in a breath. “Yew?” He says sharply, glancing urgently between Oscar and the wand. 

“What about me?” Oscar says, frowning, finally tearing his eyes away to look at Will quizzically. 

“No– no, not you. Y-E-W. The wood. That wand is made of yew.” Will says, as if that explains everything.. 

“...Okay?” Oscar says, “What’s the core?”

“It doesn’t– the core’s phoenix feather, but that’s not the issue,” Will says, stepping closer to glare at the wand. “The issue is that yew wood is very, extremely, highly notorious. I don’t use it anymore, I refuse to. That wand must be old, from an old relative of mine.”

Notorious? Oscar wants to ask, but he suspects Will might explain whether he wants him to or not. He subconsciously holds the wand closer to his chest, protective. 

“I mean, they’re known to be proficient at curses, they’re sought-after by dark arts users – really, I won’t have it in my shop!” Will declares, crossing his arms over his chest. “Seriously,” he mutters, closing the case and setting it aside, “ Yew .”

“If you won’t have it, then can I take this one off your hands?” Oscar offers tentatively, pulling some galleons from his pocket and starting to count them out.

Will groans, scrubbing a hand over his face and muttering under his breath . “ Sure ,” he says after a moment. “Take it off my hands. Just don’t come running back here if it rejects you for not casting enough Unforgivables.”

When Oscar steps out onto the street again, new wand in hand, he can still hear Will grumbling as he pockets Oscar’s money. 

The stained glass of Bott Potion’s shop windows cast a blue-green-purplish sheen on George’s face as he squints at the label of Baruffio’s Brain Elixir. 

“Resorting to bottled brains, Georgie?” Alex teases, snatching the bottle from him. 

“I’m not–” George starts, but Carlos cuts him off. 

“Wow, not very head boy behavior, George,” he says, and Lando giggles where he’s stood reading the ingredients of a Pompion Potion. 

“Guys,” George says, exasperated, “it isn’t that. I’m just fairly certain that this elixir is illegal to produce. And sell.”

Alex, Carlos, and Lando all look at him blankly. 

“And that’s… bad,” he adds, causing them to break out into another round of giggles. 

“Valtteri,” Carlos calls, and Valtteri Bottas, the owner of Bott Potions, leans into the main room. 

“Yes?” he asks, frowning.

“Do you sell any illegal potions here?” Carlos asks, grinning.

Valtteri snorts. “Are you a cop? Did the Ministry send you?” he responds, going back to his bubbling cauldron. 

“There’s your answer,” Carlos turns to George, who just grumbles and sets the bottle down.

“Should I get some Cupid Crystals?” Lando asks, picking up a small, pink, heart-shaped bottle. He laughs when George wheels around, scandalized, and then his laugh turns to a scowl when Alex pitches in too.

“Gonna slip it in Piastri’s sleepytime tea?” he asks, elbowing Lando, and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. 

Carlos tries to stifle a laugh as Lando turns to glare at Alex. “Fuck off,” he groans, “I don’t even like the guy.”

“Like him enough to sleep in the same room, though,” Alex retorts, taking the bottle from him and uncapping it, letting the sweet rose scent waft into the air. 

“Who’s fault is that?” Lando gasps, swatting his arm. “You bastard. You and Daniel, scheming. Could’ve given me a heads up, maybe.”

“Speaking of,” George says, motioning out the window to where Oscar’s weaving his way through the crowd on the street. 

“Oh, you’re joking,” Lando groans, peering over his shoulder to get a better look. 

“Play nice,” Carlos says, as Alex asks, “Aren’t you gonna say hi?”

“Why would I say–” Lando’s cut off by the sound of the bell above the door, and, of course, there he is. “Hi,” he adds awkwardly, realizing he’s been staring at Oscar for a moment too long. 

“Hi,” Oscar says, stilted, glancing between Lando and his friends. 

A belated chorus of Hello!s and Hi Oscars come from George, Alex, and Carlos, and he nods in acknowledgement before awkwardly heading over to the counter. 

Lando pointedly turns back to the display shelf he was perusing, suddenly very interested in Valtteri’s supply of Blemish Blitzer. 

“Excuse me,” he can hear Oscar call politely, and he rolls his eyes. Timid, he thinks, he’d apologize to a bowl of soup for spilling it. And then he remembers the cold look in Oscar’s eyes after he’d blasted Lando off of the Defense class’s dueling platform and– well, maybe not.  

“You must be Oscar!” Valterri says brightly, reappearing at the front of the shop. Behind him, one of the cauldrons bubbles ominously, and George glances at it nervously. Their little group has gone silent, clearly eavesdropping. 

“That’s me,” Oscar says, eyes scanning over the array of labels on the shelf next to him, “I’m here for a–”

“I know what you’re here for,” Valtteri interrupts, hoisting a medium-sized potions box onto the counter. “He sent the list over already. You’ve got your basic recipes – Wiggenweld, Edurus, – and I've loaded you up with a few bottles of Focus, Maxima, and Thunderbrew as well. Can never be too prepared.”

He slides the box over to Oscar as Lando, George, Carlos, and Alex become increasingly intrigued. 

“Now what does he need all those for,” Alex whispers, but George elbows him to be quiet. 

“Thank you,” Oscar says, “he also told me to ask for–”

“Spare Wiggenweld! Right,” Valtteri says, “Give me one moment and I’ll grab that as well. Just finished a fresh batch.”

As he disappears to the back of the shop, George steps up, peering over Oscar’s shoulder at the collection of brews. “Quite the setup,” he hums, and Oscar jumps. 

“Oscar, right?” he says, offering a hand to shake, “I’m George. Ravenclaw Head Boy, friend of Lando’s.” He gestures over to where Lando looks like he’s trying to glare a hole through George’s head.

Oscar half-glances over to Lando, balking, and then looks back to George, shaking his hand. “I’m– yeah,” he says, “I’m Oscar.”

Valtteri returns with a smaller box that contains about 15 vials of Wiggenweld, placing it next to the first box, and George’s eyes widen. “What could you possibly…” George starts, trailing off. 

Oscar shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I’m not totally sure,” he says awkwardly, “it seems like overkill to me too. It’s just what Mark told me to get.” 

He starts to take some coins out of his pocket to pay for the batch of Wiggenweld, but Valterri waves him off. “It’s covered,” he says with a wink, and goes back to stirring the now nearly-overflowing cauldron.

“Mark?” George asks after a moment, frowning. Are there any students named Mark that he knows? Is Oscar trafficking potions for someone unknowingly? Should he report this?

“Webber,” Oscar says, stacking the boxes and tucking them under one arm, “Professor Webber. He gave me a list of supplies to get.”

George makes a strangled noise as Oscar retreats, offering a polite nod to the others and a sheepish wave to Lando before he’s out the door. 

“A first-name basis with a professor…” George says, mystified. 

“With Professor Webber,” Alex adds, “he’s, like, proper scary. Upper-level Magical Theory, right?” 

Lando nods. “I’m taking his class this term,” he says with a grimace. 

“Who is this guy?” George asks, still staring at the door. 

Carlos snorts. “You’d just love to be on a first-name basis with a certain professor, wouldn’t you, George?” he teases, and Alex catches on. 

“Oh, Lewis~,” he adds, and they all burst out laughing, save for George, who goes beet-red and starts spluttering out defenses. 

After trying to avoid his roommate for what felt like hours, Lando finally has a moment of peace to sip on the bottle of Pumpkin Fizz he bought at Honeydukes. His group has settled down at one of the tables in Hogsmeade Square, Carlos fiddling with a Liquorice Wand next to him as Alex and George squabble over who gets to open their shared Chocolate Frog. 

“I want the card, though,” George says, snatching the small blue package back from Alex, “I’ve got a collection!”

“You’ll let the frog out if you open it, you always lose them!” Alex snaps back, trying to reach for it as George holds it above their heads.

“Children, please,” Carlos laughs, but anything else he would have said is cut off by a loud, ominous CRACK, followed by a rumbling noise. The whole square falls silent, glancing around. 

“TROLL,” someone shouts, and panic breaks out as a massive armored troll leaps into the center of the square. 

The cobblestone cracks beneath as it lumbers forward, growling, swinging a metal club. Lando freezes in terror, his drink slipping out of his hand and shattering on the ground below. George, Alex, and a few of the other locals and shopkeepers spring into action, blasting it with spells and knocking it back for a moment, but the troll easily picks itself back up, their spells not doing much damage. 

Carlos tackles Lando to the ground as their picnic table is turned into toothpicks, the troll’s club glinting menacingly in the sunlight where they’d been sitting just moments before. 

“Shit,” Lando groans, stumbling to his feet. The troll is between them and the rest of their friends, but he can hear someone yelling to draw it away from the town, out to the field behind Honeydukes. 

The troll disappears between the buildings, following Alex, George, and the others, but before Carlos and Lando can draw their wands and follow– 

CR-ACK. CRACK. CRACK. 

BOOM. 

A second troll explodes out of an empty storefront, roaring and spraying plaster and wood across the square. It’s empty save for Carlos, Lando, and–

“Bombarda!” 

–and Oscar, who blasts the troll between its shoulders as it raises its club. 

The troll wheels around and Oscar catches Lando’s eye. Oscar mouths RUN, dodging to the side to avoid another swing. 

“HELL NO,” Lando shouts back. No way can he fight a troll on his own, he’s gonna get himself killed, Lando thinks, and then, Is he an idiot? He’s an idiot. His ego’s so big that he wants to get himself killed fighting a troll on his second day at Hogwarts. What a moron. 

Lando glances at Carlos, who nods, and they both draw their wands. 

Fuck. Fuck. Oscar circles around, trying to draw the troll back where it came from, but it seems more interested in Lando and his Gryffindor friend now. Shit. Fuck. 

It’s one thing to have Oscar’s first shopping trip go sour – it’s a whole other thing to put the lives of his classmates, of Lando, in danger. Why didn’t he run?

Lando lands a Glacias hit, freezing the troll’s club arm for a moment, but then it breaks through, spraying ice around uselessly. His friend’s Flipendo throws it off balance, though, leaving it open to–

“Bombarda,” Oscar casts again, but it veers left, missing the troll entirely and nearly catching a tree aflame. His new wand sparks at him, unimpressed. …Right. New wand. 

He corrects his aim and the next hit lands, but the force of the spell knocks him back a few steps. Okay, no left curve, but more recoil, he notes, trying to override the muscle memory he’d gained when practicing with the wand Mark had lent him. Lando and his friend are over by Honeydukes; the troll is closer to Oscar, circling the wide open part of the square. Run, Oscar wants to say. I can handle it, just run. 

In a flash of green, he sees Lando darting behind a stack of barrels for cover. Something is aching in his chest, pulling at his sternum, buried deeper than the anxiety reaching up his throat. Mind blank, he lets his instincts rule him for a moment, and raises his wand. 

Across the square, one of the barrels next to Lando starts to vibrate. “...What?” he breathes, the hair on the back of his neck rising. And then the barrel’s gone entirely, careening through the air toward the troll’s head, trajectory guided by Oscar’s wand. 

“Ah, Accio, too destructive I think,” Carlos says from a few paces away, brows furrowing. Oscar aims his wand at another barrel. 

It’s not Accio, Lando wants to say. It’s something else. But he doesn’t have a name for it, and lets the subject drop, focusing on trying to land a solid Stupefy. 

The next barrel cracks against the troll’s chest, and right where its metal armor glows red, something sparks. 

The troll roars, charging with its club, and Oscar has just enough time to drop to the ground before it goes sailing over his head. He side-steps halfway across the square, dodging blows, but there’s something thrumming under his skin, electric, overriding the mounting exhaustion in his aching muscles. He spots a wooden crate behind the troll and points his wand at it and pulls again, reaching out on instinct. 

It’s like breathing, something older than the spells he’s learned; older, maybe, than the rest of magic itself. 

Ancient magic, Mark had explained, is a rarity. Something left over from when the world formed, maybe, or an excess of some sort. No one really knows what it is, but we know it’s powerful. 

Walking along a cliffside towards a ruined palace, Mark had told Oscar that magic was no different to any other power. It mattered less what it did, and more who wielded it. 

You wield it, he’d said. What will you do with it?

Lando stumbles as the troll charges him again, tripping over a crack in the cobblestone. It’s just enough to slow him down.  

The club catches him just below the ribs, flings him towards one of the still-standing walls. He hits it with a sickening crunch. 

Lando crumples, winded, air scraping uselessly in his throat. He can’t get his legs to work, can’t raise his wand, can’t do anything but watch. 

Watch, as something sparks at the end of Oscar’s wand. 

The ache in Oscar’s sternum feels stronger, spreading to his shoulder blades, down his arm to his wrist, through the fingers curling around his wand. He feels the buzzing reach a crescendo, winds up, casts. 

It’s white. Like pure lightning, like the glint of something shining in the sun. Deliriously, Lando thinks it’s beautiful. Everything else looks muted in comparison, darkness creeping in at the edge of his vision. He thinks Oscar might be glowing. White wisps, curling around the bones of his wrist, the line of his shoulder. His eyes. 

Oscar's eyes are glowing. 

The troll explodes into ash, into nothingness, like it was never there at all. The air stills, quiet. Lando’s ears are ringing. The darkness in his eyes is spreading, he can feel his head getting heavier. There are voices calling out to him, Carlos and someone else – someone familiar, he thinks. Maybe Daniel? Was Daniel here earlier? Softer vowels, the way the accent curves around them. Yeah. Probably Daniel. 

Lando closes his eyes.

Chapter Text

The next few days blur together in a mix of Lando wincing at his bruises, brewing Wiggenweld, going to classes on autopilot, and replaying the troll attack over and over again in his head. 

He doesn’t remember most of it – Carlos yelling and tackling him to the floor, a half-dozen near-misses with the troll’s club. He doesn’t remember the impact, but after it.

That he remembers. 

The bright, white glow, something non-human, twisting through the air, a form of magic he’d never seen before. Oscar’s skin, his hair, the lines of his hands, all glowing, like he wasn’t quite alive. A vessel for something. Like a patronus, or a ghost. 

It had shone through Oscar’s whole being, and then – out through his wand, and gone. Spiraling ashes. 

Lando replays the moment in his head over and over again, and then goes to sleep and dreams of it, too. 

He and Oscar have fallen into somewhat of a routine; Lando wakes up first and leaves the room, usually before Oscar’s even awake. He comes back at night first, too, Oscar usually slinking in close to midnight. The first morning after the attack, Oscar had woken up as Lando was shrugging his pajama shirt off, purple bruises blooming obvious and aching on his back. Oscar hadn’t said anything, but when Lando came back from the showers, he was gone and a few more vials of Wiggenweld had appeared on Lando’s desk.

Lando keeps meaning to thank him, really, for the potion that morning and for everything the day prior. 

Carlos had filled him in once he was cleared by the Infirmary. When Lando was hit, Oscar distracted the troll so Carlos could get to him. After, Oscar’d handed off almost half of his new stock of Wiggenweld, mostly to Carlos so Lando could make it back to the castle, but some to Alex and George as well. The two of them had reappeared in the square a few minutes after Lando was knocked out, along with the rest of the townsfolk that had lured the first troll away.

Carlos, Alex, and George had helped Lando limp back to the castle, which he remembers in bits and pieces. Oscar stayed behind to help fix up the square.

Every time Lando tries to thank him, though – and he really does mean to, there just hasn’t been a good time – something holds him back. Oscar’s out of the room most of the day, so there are only a handful of moments where they overlap in the first place. And of course there’s the insistent shame that curls around Lando’s shoulders whenever he’s reminded that he had to be practically carried back from Hogsmead, half-conscious and crying at the pain shooting up his side, and Oscar was – what, a little winded? Carlos, at least, had some cuts and bruises, though they were mostly from debris. But Oscar, no. Oscar was perfectly fine. Well enough to stay and cast Reparo a million times, too, and receive the praise of the town. 

Oscar doesn’t even need his thanks, really; his ego’s been fed enough recently. 

Jealously, Lando mentally adds troll-killer to the list of rumors he’s heard about Oscar in the two weeks since term started. 

It’s still the talk of the school when Friday rolls around, and with it, Crossed Wands. 

Lando’s been jumpy since the troll fight, itching for a good duel, and he twirls his wand between his fingers as he and Carlos reach the clocktower courtyard. Most everyone is already there, Verstappen waving when he spots them, Alex chatting up some blonde Gryffindor Lando doesn’t recognize, and Charles, who’s talking to–

Right. Verstappen had invited Oscar after their Defense class duel. So Charles is talking to Oscar, probably to set up his initiation duels. God forbid Lando have anything sacred at this school.

Lando turns away, trying to mask his annoyance, but since Carlos snorts a bit at his expression it’s probably not working too well. 

He gets a clap on the back from Alex when they walk over, who introduces his new friend as Logan, a 5th-year transfer from Ilvermorny. 

“Nice to meet you, man, heard a lot about you,” Logan says, dapping him up. At Lando’s look of confusion, he adds, “I’m friends with your roomie!”

Logan tilts his head to where Oscar is now talking to some of the other club members, smiling and laughing. Something twists unpleasantly in Lando’s stomach. So fucking annoying . Acting like he owns the place.

Lando laughs politely, and aside from his connection to Oscar, Logan seems alright. Laugh a bit too hard at Alex’s jokes, which Lando files away for later. They chat idly about classes and professors until Charles claps his hands, getting everyone’s attention.

“We have time for four rounds today,” he says, grinning, and the way he’s full of energy, already poised, gives away the fact that he’s scheduled himself for at least one of them. 

“He’s got you for duos with me,” Verstappen says quietly, leaning in, and Lando grins as Charles announces:

“Round 1, Doubles: Norris and Verstappen against Lawson and, of course, myself!”

Carlos ruffles his hair and Alex shouts encouragement as Lando and Max step out into the middle of the room. Everyone else clears out, hugging the walls or filling in the archways, trying to get a good view but stay out of range of stray spells. 

“I want a nice, clean round,” Charles says, when the four of them have stepped up to shake hands. He’s looking at Verstappen when he says it, smiling with his teeth like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They all know Charles is the club’s #1 rule breaker when it comes to dueling decorum, the first to make sure a fist lands if a spell doesn’t, but Verstappen just laughs, squeezing his hand for a moment longer before letting go.

“Of course, Charlie,” he says, starting to back up, and Lando does the same. Ollie, one of Charles’ devotees, blows a whistle, and the round begins.

Over the years, Lando’s learned to give Verstappen and Charles plenty of space when they duel doubles against each other. Or even singles, as a spectator. Their strange, mutual tension and the likeliness of spilling actual blood typically means Lando is good to focus on whoever the other doubles challenger is, so today he sizes up Liam Lawson.

Hufflepuff, fellow 5th-year, midfield placement on last year’s Crossed Wands rankings. From what Lando remembers, he’s decent at damage spells but weak against control spells, and he’s slow on his feet. 

Well, slower than Lando, at least. But then again, most people are slower than Lando. 

He drops down, dodging a Levioso that hits the wall behind him, and casts Incendio, taking the chance to get closer while Liam struggles to avoid the flames. 

“Depulso,” Lando casts next, slamming Liam against the wall and pulling a gasp from the crowd. His ribs would twinge in sympathy if he were in the habit of feeling sympathetic for his opponents. 

In the impact, Liam’s dropped his wand, and a quick Accio ensure’s he’s out of the round. One of the main rules of Crossed Wands: lose your wand, lose the round. 

Lando holds it up for a moment, ensuring Ollie notes the disarming, and then tosses it to the crowd as they cheer. He turns his focus to Charles as Liam retreats into one of the corners to lick his wounds. One down, one to go. 

Where Liam’s weakness is control spells, Charles’ is his single-minded focus. It serves him well in singles, consistently in the top 5 of that bracket at the end of each term, but it makes him worse in doubles. Stalking around to his other side, Lando can tell Charles doesn’t realize Liam’s out yet. Lando grins, creeping up behind him.

“Petrificus Totalis,” he whispers, gleeful, and Charles has half a moment of realization before he’s stuck, stock-still, in his defensive stance. 

Max laughs as he plucks Charles’ wand out of his frozen hand, holding it up, and the whistle blows again, signaling the end of the round. 

The winning duo gets their few minutes of glory before the first set of skirmishes starts up – shorter, lower-stakes matches that run between the official Crossed Wands rounds – accepting the applause of the crowd and the cheers of their friends, laughing as bets get settled. 

Lando loves the eyes on him, lives for it, sometimes. It’s nice enough to be a good duelist, but to be recognized as one by others – to win, to beat his peers – there’s nothing like it. He still remembers the first duel he won, a scrimmage against Daniel, and the way that high stayed with him through the next week. Some people find the attention distracting, performing worse under the scrutiny of their classmates, but for Lando, it just makes the wins even better. 

The next round is singles; Yuki, the Hufflepuff from his Defense class that Verstappen is friends with, and Carlos, who always puts on a good show. Lando’s mostly paying attention, but as he watches Yuki cast a cutting Diffindo, his mind drifts back to the Hogsmead fight, to Oscar’s silhouette against the broken buildings, to the stream of magic that was white, white, white. 

“Lando, you hit your head pretty hard, mate,” Carlos had said, when Lando asked about it. He hadn’t been looking at Oscar, he’d been looking at the way Lando dropped to the ground. “It was probably Bombarda, yes? Some exploding one.”

“Did you hear him cast it, though?” Lando had tried, desperate, certain that Oscar hadn’t said anything to activate the spell, his face the usual indifferent mask he seems to wear whenever he’s picking a fight. 

“I didn’t hear him cast anything, cabrón, I was running to you ,” Carlos had said, and Lando felt guilty enough about the whole thing that he’d stopped asking.

Well, and the way Carlos seemed inclined to send him back to the infirmary to check for a concussion if he continued. But still. 

Lando glances around, turning the image of the mystery spell over in his head as he scans the crowd. He’s dueling today, Lando thinks passively, as his eyes light on a figure leaning against the far wall, maybe he’ll cast it again.  

Oscar’s watching the duel closely, eyes narrowed, arms crossed over his chest, the tips of his front teeth peaking out to dig into his bottom lip. Focused. His eyes resolutely remain brown and not white, even when he catches Lando staring and arches an eyebrow at him. 

Lando looks away to see Carlos disarm Yuki expertly. He cheers like he’d been watching the whole time, slaps Carlos on the shoulder when he rejoins their group on the sidelines, and bites his tongue behind his teeth to keep from asking Are you sure? Are you sure you didn’t see it that day? The flash of brilliant light? 

Charles steps into the middle again, having shaken off his earlier loss, and announces the next round is an initiation round. 

“Give a warm welcome to one of our new 5th years, Oscarrrrr Pisatriiiii!” he crows, throwing an arm out to where Oscar’s still leaning against the wall. He says it like Lando should care, but as the people around him clap and shout and hastily place bets, he decides that he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter to him whether or not Oscar duels well, whether or not he joins Crossed Wands. Dueling is Lando’s, and Lando’s alone. He won’t let his upstart of a roommate take that from him. 

He watches as Oscar and another Slytherin – Fred Vesti, one of the beaters on their quidditch team – step into the center, joined by Pierre Gasly and Lance Stroll. 

Fred’s good with defensive spells, Lando knows, so no matter how shit Oscar is they should be alright. Looking at Pierre, he runs through stats in his head. Quick draw, but bad with spatial awareness. Best strategy: keep moving. Lando doesn’t know as much about Stroll, who's les active in the club, but he’s a Hufflepuff and Daniel seems to like him. Generally that’s as good an endorsement as you can get.

Any further commentary is cut off as the whistle sounds, and the duelists drop into their stances. 

“Who are you rooting for?” Carlos asks quietly, leaning in to see where Lando is looking. “Oscar?”

“ No, ” he snips back, crossing his arms, “I don’t care how he does.”

Carlos hums like he doesn’t believe him, but leans back again, watching as the action begins.

Fred’s taken the lead a bit, stepping forward to try and single out Stroll. Different from his usual, Lando thinks, but then again maybe he’s trying to make it easier for Oscar. Needs his hand held. Weak. 

Oscar’s hanging back, seemingly happy to watch Fred’s blind spot as he advances forward, but in doing so, he looks like an easy target for Pierre. The two split off as Pierre drives him away from Fred. As they get closer to the back wall, students scatter, making space for them. 

Oscar’s pulling his punches, Lando thinks, as Carlos mutters, “He is hesitating...” under his breath. 

Lando narrows his eyes as he watches Oscar’s back hit the cold stone, driven there by a collection of near-misses. And then he sees it again, that flash of white. 

Lando waits with bated breath for– something, for a spark at the end of Oscar’s wand, for Pierre to be reduced to a pile of ashes on the clocktower room’s floor. 

But this time, nothing happens. Oscar’s eyebrows pinch together, and then the glow is gone.

Lando frowns, unable to help the swell of disappointment, the feeling of anticlimax. 

Carlos shoots him a look. “Thought you didn’t care?” he mutters, but Lando ignores him, watching as Oscar drops to a crouch, casting a quick Confringo to force Pierre away.

He’s on his feet again, sending Pierre flying into a pile of sandbags with a well-timed Depulso, when something else catches Lando’s eye. Is his wand different?

It’s burned into his memory, the way Oscar had looked, standing at the edge of Professor Alonso’s dueling platform, looking down at him. Wand held loosely in his right hand, a knotted dark walnut, slightly crooked. 

But the wand Oscar holds today, which he levels at Pierre as the Frenchman scrambles to his feet, is different. Lighter wood, a sandy color, thin and straight. Simple, no ornamentation. Did he have it in Hogsmeade? The memories are foggy, dominated by the fight, Oscar always a blur of motion. The only moment Lando can pinpoint is the last spell, but the light was so bright that Oscar’s wand could have been anything. 

“Is Oscar’s wand different?” Lando asks before he can think it through, turning to Carlos. 

“Mate, what?” he asks, eyes flicking between where Oscar is disarming Pierre with an expert Expelliarmus and where Lando is looking at him, expectant. “I– why would it be different?”

Lando chews on his lip, fighting back another frown. It doesn’t matter, really, shouldn’t, but it’s another thing about Oscar that just doesn’t line up. 

“Nevermind,” he grumbles, but it’s lost in the roar of the crowd as Fred blasts Stroll's wand out of his hand and the round is won.

For Oscar’s singles round, Charles stands in the middle of the room once again and asks for a volunteer, looking right at Lando. 

Prick, Lando thinks, and stares right back, saying nothing. 

A few people raise their hands or half-step forward, but they’re hesitant, having seen the beating Pierre took against Oscar in doubles. Charles is still looking at Lando.

Their face-off is broken up when a new voice emerges, Daniel pushing through the crowd and shoving some poor 1st-year aside. He calls dibs, appearing next to Lando’s group as he pauses, grinning up at Charles. 

“Can I go?” he asks again after a moment, when the rest of the crowd has fallen silent, “Got caught up– Head Boy duties, you’re familiar– but I heard Lance got beat and I need to make sure us Hufflepuffs are repped fairly, you know?”

Charles gives Lando one last look before giving up, but Lando won’t meet his eyes. He sighs before nodding to Daniel. “Okay,” he declares, “Next match: singles, Piastri v. Riccardo!”

Daniel’s smile gets impossibly wider as he straightens up, shrugging off his robes and handing them to someone behind him. “Lovely,” he says, stepping up to shake Oscar’s hand. 

“As a reminder, this is Oscar’s second round for initiation,” Charles says, looking between the two of them, “If he wins, he will become an official member of Crossed Wands.”

“And if he loses, he’s only an unofficial member?” Daniel jokes, earning some scattered giggles from his admirers. One thing Daniel’s known for, and adored for, is his commentary. When they hold official matches and he’s the announcer, attendance skyrockets. When he’s actually participating , Lando’s pretty sure he doesn’t ever stop talking, only pauses to cast spells or catch his breath. 

Daniel and Oscar take their places, shaking hands and then separating to drop into their dueling stances. 

The whistle blows. The round begins.

Before the first spell is even cast, Daniel’s chatting, taking a casual half-step forward and asking, half to Oscar and half to the crowd, “How are we feeling today?”

He grins as he’s answered with cheers, and Oscar rolls his eyes, casting a quick Expelliarmus instead of responding. 

Daniel sidesteps it, responding with a spell of his own, and the duel is on. 

“This is how you treat your fellow countryman?” he asks when Oscar’s Diffindo nearly gives him a new haircut. 

As he slams Oscar against the floor with a well-timed Descendo, Daniel tells him it’s what he deserves for being a Wollongong Warriors fan over the Thunderella Thunders. 

“I thought you’d be better, with how much Lando complained about your duel in Alonso’s class,” he says as Oscar casts Protego , and the shield spell wobbles, unstable, before shattering. Daniel raises his eyebrows. “Oh, interesting–” he starts, cut off by a Confringo nearly singeing his eyebrows off. 

“Don’t start,” Oscar pants, taking a half-step back. He’s lucky they’re on the far side of the room from most of the crowd, right now – hopefully no one else caught that.

Daniel just grins wider.

Alex winces sympathetically next to Lando as they watch Oscar trip across the floor, pulled in by Daniel’s Accio . 

“He is probably getting tired,” Carlos says on Lando’s other side, but Lando stays quiet, eyes narrowing as Daniel grabs Oscar’s collar, pulling him closer for a moment. 

Daniel glances over at where Lando and his friends are standing and grins, saying something to Oscar, who freezes up.

And then Oscar looks over, too, and oh. There it is. 

Whatever Daniel had said must have gotten to him, then, because his eyes flash white, finally, finally, and the wand that had been loose in his hand tilts up, wrist flicking. 

A practice dummy follows the arc of his wand, lurching forward off the wall and slamming into Daniel just as Oscar takes a step back. 

Calm, controlled. Lando studies how he takes a deep breath in. 

The crowd watches with bated breath as Daniel struggles to shove the dummy off, the mass of metal pinning him to the cobblestone floor. After a moment, he sighs in defeat.

“Well played, mate, well played,” he says, twisting around to look at Oscar. “You wanna help get this thing off me?”

“You want to yield, first?” Oscar says, staying a safe distance away. Daniel still has his wand, and it’s a smart move. Lando wouldn’t trust him in that position, either.

Daniel laughs, a full-bodied thing, and tosses his wand to Oscar, still smiling as he forfeits the match. 

“Focus,” Professor Alonso reprimands once again as Oscar’s posture slips for a moment, curling in on himself. He taps his wand on Oscar’s offending shoulder in warning. “The most important thing is focus. Do it again.”

Oscar’s mouth twitches in annoyance like he’s biting back a frown, and he straightens up, turning to face the dummy again. 

“Incendio,” he casts, or tries to – a flutter of sparks come from his wand in a pitiful burst. 

Alonso sighs. 

“Maybe Mark’s been soft on you. Again.”

Oscar takes a deep breath, trying to clear his head. Normally, learning new spells comes easily, but each time he tries to cast, something else flashes through his head instead of the incantation. Or, well. someone else. 

“Incendio.”

Lando, casting the same spell against Lawson in his duel, the way the flames lit up his eyes.

“Again.”

“Incendio.”

Lando, smirking as he sneaks up on Charles. 

“Again.”

“Incendio.”

The way Lando had been looking at him during Oscar’s doubles round, eyes narrowed, assessing. 

“Again.”

“Incendio.”

You wanna impress Norris, don’t you? Daniel had said quietly, hand fisted in his collar. And Oscar had felt it again, the electric buzz zinging up and down his spine, hot and cold at the same time. Yeah, he’d thought, locking eyes with Lando across the room, I do. 

“Again.”

“Incendio.”

Alonso claps Oscar on the shoulder, grinning. The training dummy has a dark scorch of ash across its breastplate, and Oscar’s wand is a few degrees warmer than usual. He doesn’t even remember casting it, really, the ache from his earlier duels settling in his bones. 

“Good job,” Alonso says, “good enough for now.”

“I’m serious, though–”

“Lando,” Carlos sighs, picking over his green beans and jámon, “you were very concussed the first time. Are you sure it wasn’t a, um, trick of the light?”

“I wasn’t concussed this time, though, and I swear I saw it!”

The dining hall is bustling with students, loud enough that Oscar can’t hear their conversation at the other end of the long table. Carlos, Alex, Daniel, and George are all sitting together, listening to Lando insist, again, that there’s something off about Hogwarts’ newest addition. 

George is politely pretending not to hear about their illegal dueling, but Daniel is frowning and Alex looks a bit worried. 

“Have you been getting headaches?” Alex asks, but Lando waves him off. 

“I’m fine, you guys are just… ugh,” Lando groans, turning to Daniel. “Hey, you were close to him. His eyes went weird at the end when you– wait, what did you say to him?”

Daniel pauses mid-bite, fork halfway off of his plate. “Say to him when?” he asks innocently, trying to keep his expression neutral.

“When he– Daniel. At the end of the duel. Right before he whacked you with the dummy. You said something to him and he looked at me and his eyes went weird. What did you say?” Lando demands, fully turned towards Daniel now, one leg folded underneath him on the bench.

Daniel eats his bite of beef, chewing thoughtfully. “Well,” he says after he swallows it down, “I was trying to win the duel, I wasn’t exactly getting lost in his eyes like you–”

“UGH!” Lando whines, turning back around to glare at his empty plate. “You’re all useless. I swear, something’s up with him. He had a different wand, too, right Carlos?”

Carlos shrugs. “You said this before, yes, but I don’t know what his supposed other wand looked like. You are the one who dueled him.”

“If it’s his wand that you’re interested in, I’m sure you can ask to see,” Alex snorts, and George elbows him, rolling his eyes. 

Lando scowls, picking at the chicken bones on his plate. If none of you will take this seriously, he thinks to himself, I’ll do my own research. 

Chapter Text

This part of the library is always freezing, Lando thinks to himself as he creeps down another stairwell. His Disillusionment charm is holding strong so far, obscuring his form from the ghosts that patrol the upper hallways beyond the restricted section’s locked gate. 

He trails his fingers along the spines of the books he passes, mouthing their titles as he goes. Harrowing Herbology: A Study in Dangerous Plants… Necromantic Theories and Practices… An Auror’s Anthology of Spells … nothing yet on secret magic that makes eyes glow. 

Lando sighs, making his way down a few levels to the basement of the restricted section. There has to be something here, he thinks, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. I know what I saw. Some sort of magic, different magic, secret magic. And there’s no better place for secret magic than these almost-forgotten stone passageways and their dusty, unorganized stacks of books.

“Revelio.”

Lando freezes, caught, as his concealing charm burns off of him. “What– you.”

At the end of the passage, looking irritatingly neutral about the whole thing, is none other than Oscar Piastri.

“Oh, it’s you,” Oscar says simply, tucking his wand away again. 

Lando wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to start casting Unforgivables. “How the fuck did you get down here?” he settles for, grabbing Oscar by the arm when he moves to walk past him. Oscar’s coming from the opposite direction, heading out of the basement passages as Lando's heading in, so he must have gotten to the library even earlier. What is he doing here?

Oscar turns, seemingly unimpressed, and pulls from his pocket the– the key. To the gate of the restricted section in the library. But it can’t be the exact key, because the real one is currently weighing heavy in Lando’s left pocket. So the one Oscar’s got must be a copy. But how did he… is there a spare Lando doesn’t know about? Even if there is a spare, how the hell did Oscar get his hands on it?

Before Lando can ask any questions, Oscar shrugs off his hand, drawing Lando’s attention to the thick book he’s holding. It looks old, yellowed pages a bit ragged where they’re pressed together against Oscar’s chest. The binding looks aged, too, red leather with gold details. There’s no title on the spine, and the cover is hidden except for more gold ornamentation around the edges. Interesting.

Oscar opens his mouth like he’s about to ask how Lando got in, but whatever he was planning to say is lost in the sound of crashing metal behind them, followed by a high-pitched giggle.

Peeves, Lando thinks, alarm bells ringing in his head, shit. Before they can react, the poltergeist appears, twisting around to get a good look at them. 

“Oh, Lando!” he crows, delighted, and Lando bites back a grimace. “Who’s your new friend?”

Peeves dives towards Oscar, and Lando can’t stop the instinctive arm he tries to throw in front of him. The hairs on his forearm prickle when Peeves passes right through. 

“Introduce me to your conquest of the week!” Peeves crows, flicking Oscar’s green tie as he adds, “I see you’re keeping it in the house, this time!”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Lando can see Oscar frowning, eyebrows knitted together as he tries to piece together what Peeves is talking about. 

“Fuck off, just leave us alone,” Lando glares, pulling his wand from his sleeve. Not that he could do much against something that’s only selectively corporeal, but– still. It’s the principle of the thing.

“I’m feeling nice today.” Peeves declares, ignoring Lando’s halfhearted threats. Oscar still looks lost, glancing uncertainly between the two of them. “I’ll give you some advice!”

Lando grimaces. He has to get out of here, Peeves will definitely rat them out as soon as he’s done bothering them. And Librarian Szafnauer isn’t exactly one of Lando’s biggest fans.

“...What the hell…” Oscar mumbles, slowly drawing his wand too. 

“Mister Norris,” Peeves says, floating around to face Lando, “Maybe if you took him somewhere nicer, he’d stay longer!”

Lando flushes, refusing to look over at Oscar. He can feel Oscar staring at him, doesn’t need to look to see the cold, blank expression he always wears. 

“I’m not–” Lando starts, incredulous, but Peeves flits away, laughter echoing.

“Have fun!” the poltergeist sing-songs, and then he’s gone. 

“He’s definitely going to tell Otmar,” Lando huffs, finally risking a glance at Oscar.

Oscar stays silent, but his face is flushed like he’s irritated or something. Flinching away from the thought of being with you, Lando’s mind supplies. Shut up, he shoots back. It isn’t like that.

Lando awkwardly clears his throat, shoving down the images of what it might be like if it was like that; how it would feel to get his hands in Oscar’s hair, whether Oscar’s face would flush that pretty red again– “I’ll go after him,” Lando says quickly, turning towards the way out.

Oscar snaps out of his stupor, turning to Lando in surprise. “You’ll. what?”

Lando feels himself tense up. Don’t ask me why, don’t ask… “I’ll cover for you. Can you find your way out?”

Oscar stares at him for a moment, narrowing his eyes. “Why?”

Fuck. “…So you can leave?” Lando says, deflecting. He really doesn’t know why he’s helping Oscar, just that it doesn’t seem worth the trouble to get them both caught.

“No, I mean,” Oscar shakes his head, “why cover for me?”

Lando tries to shrug, but it’s stiff as he turns back to the stairs. “Not worth it to me if Webber thinks I’m corrupting his pet project, right?” he says, instead of I always take the fall when I get caught with someone down here. Which would be, you know, a bit more incriminating. But it’s not like that.

Oscar’s mouth twists for a moment like he’s annoyed by the nickname, but Lando turns and starts walking before he can examine it any further. 

Lando leaves him among the dust and cobwebs, mind reeling. Sure, yeah, Oscar thinks, do me a massive favor after you’ve shown me nothing but hostility for weeks. Makes sense.

Lando confuses him in a way that makes him feel like there’s a hand around his throat. If he can just figure him out, maybe Oscar can breathe again. 

It’s the same feeling that he gets when he’s trying to figure out complex incantations or learn a difficult charm. With those things, though, he can just practice over and over and over again, restart and try again until it becomes muscle memory, mouth shaping easily around ancient Latin phrases or wrist rotating perfectly when casting a spell. With Lando, he only gets one shot. Each interaction is a one-off, usually unexpected and always different. It makes him feel unsteady on his feet, the not-knowing. Oscar wants to get it right. He doesn’t know what “right” would be, exactly, when it comes to Lando, but he can’t shake the feeling that whatever just happened wasn’t it. 

Not to mention how he can’t shake the images flashing through his head – Lando leading nameless figures down the winding stairways, shushing them as they sneak past the patrolling ghosts. Lando, shoved between the piles of books with his hands on other people. Lando, pushing him against a bookshelf, leaning in and – Stop, he thinks resolutely, shaking his head to clear it. By the time it works, brain back online, Oscar’s reached the main floor of the library. 

“Disillusionment,” he whispers, slipping silently out of the restricted section and closing the gate behind him.

As Oscar weaves through the bookshelves unseen, he can hear Librarian Szafnauer and Lando speaking in hushed voices. Peeking into the main section of the library, Oscar spots them – Szafnauer with his arms crossed over his chest, frowning at Lando. Peeves floats giddily a few meters above them, his giggles echoing off of the bookshelves. 

“Peeves said you weren’t alone,” Szafnauer says, and even from his vantage point Oscar can see Lando rolling his eyes. “If you’re negatively influencing your peers–”

“I’m not negatively influencing shit,” Lando huffs, eyeing the exit. 

“You know, you’re a good kid, you’ve got potential,” Szafnauer continues as Oscar starts to skirt the edge of the room.

“I’m not wasting my potential,” Lando snaps, with the tone of someone that’s had to say it before. Oscar almost flinches, speeding up to get to the door.

“I didn’t say you were,” Szafnauer says, a hint of obvious pity, “I know you’ve had a hard year–”

Oscar’s hand is on the door handle; he doesn’t need to hear any more of this. Feels like he owes it to Lando, in a way, to not stick around and listen. Silently, he slips through the doorway and heads down toward the Slytherin common room.

Lando watches as the door opens and then closes again, tuning out whatever thinly-veiled insults Otmar is spouting. Oscar’s out, Lando thinks, allowing himself a moment of relief before tuning back in to the sounds of Otmar assigning him more detention. 

By the time Lando gets back to their room, Oscar’s already dead to the world. His blankets are shoved down to his waist, and Lando can see his chest rising and falling softly. He turns away.

That night, in Lando’s dreams, everything smells like old paper crumbling at the edges, and everything is warm. There’s an arm around his neck, and he can’t place who it belongs to, but it’s nice, a comforting weight. Someone is laughing next to him, their lips brushing the shell of his ear. 

When he wakes in the morning, his bed feels colder than usual. 

Chapter Text

“–just don’t want the students to worry about their safety. It’s bad for the donors, it's bad for the public image of the school.”

“I understand that, and I’m telling you it was a one-off. I doubt Zak and his Loyalists will come any closer than Hogsmeade, and even then they’re not exactly welcome.”

Mark and Headmaster Horner were already going at it when Oscar got to Mark’s office, and he’s been standing in the corner keeping up his Disillusionment spell for at least 10 minutes since then. He’s holding the book from the restricted section under one arm, and it’s starting to ache. He sighs. 

“Your student was there, what did he tell you?” Horner demands, spreading his arms theatrically, “Did it seem like a safe place to him? Having trolls come and smash up the main square. It’s a joke, really – how many Aurors live above those shops and they still needed students to step in?”

“Oscar hasn’t spoken to me about it yet, but Magnussen, the barkeep at the Three Broomsticks–” Mark says calmly, before Horner cuts him off again.

“I don’t care about random civilians, I care about our students–”

“They were after our students,” Mark cuts in, “Magnessen told me a few masked Loyalists followed Oscar into the Three Broomsticks after the trolls were subdued. The patrons had to scare them off. It’s likely connected to the dragon that attacked us on our way to Hogwarts.”

“Great, so you’re telling me Piastri is the problem?”

Mark sighs in a world-weary way, like he’d be happy if Headmaster Horner left his office and never returned. “I have to go to London to deal with the Ministry for a few days,” he starts, and Horner scowls. “I will look into the connection and see if we can get more support for Hogwarts security, but I can’t promise anything.”

Horner turns to the door, frowning. “Lot of good your connection to the Ministry does for us. I might be better off asking Professors Hamilton or Rosberg.”

“Feel free,” Mark deadpans, standing and ushering him to the door. 

Horner steps out of the office, turning back to look at Mark a final time. “I hope your pupil turns out to be less useless than you, Professor Webber. Good afternoon.”

“I hope so too,” Mark says quietly, and shuts the door with a click. After a moment, he says,“You can quit playing hide-and-seek now, Oscar.”

Oscar flicks his wand, dropping the charm, and steps forward to set the tome on the desk as Mark returns to his seat.

“Found this in the basement of the library,” Oscar says, and then fishes the key to the restricted section out of his pocket. “Here’s this back, too.”

Mark waves him off, not looking away from the book as he starts flipping through pages. “You might find it useful,” he says as he studies the colorful illustrations, “Just make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

Oscar squints as he tries to read some of the subtitles upside-down. It’s organized like a record of history, with the years bolded at the top of each section. The pages have fewer words and more images, of witches and wizards in dark cloaks, hands raised above their heads. A few times he catches glimpses of silver ink reflecting the light when Mark flips to another page, and it reminds him of ancient magic. 

“Speaking of which,” Mark says, and Oscar fights the urge to sigh, “How’s Norris? Heard you two were bunking together.”

“He’s fine,” Oscar says quickly. He has a habit of making out with people in the restricted section, he thinks to himself, but he doesn’t want Mark to ask exactly how he found that one out. 

“That’s it? Fine?” Mark flips past what looks like farming records, or maybe precipitation data? Tables of numbers Oscar can’t quite read. 

“Yep.”

“Not dragging you into any trouble?”

“Nope.”

“And how’s Crossed Wands?” Mark pauses his skimming to look up at Oscar when he says it.

“I don’t know what that is,” Oscar replies evenly, and Mark rolls his eyes.

“Oscar, I was in Crossed Wands. You don’t have to act like I don’t know what it is just because I’m a professor – I was Doubles champion two years in a row.”

“Not singles?” Oscar says, because he’s heard the story practically a million times growing up – how Sebastian, Mark’s Doubles partner, knocked Mark out in the Singles division every year they were both in the club. Every time Mark tells it he sounds bitter, even decades later. 

And he looks bitter now, frowning at Oscar. He’s about to say something else when he turns the page to reveal ripped shreds of paper. 

“Missing pages,” he says to himself, running a finger along the jagged edge, close to the binding. Oscar takes a half-step closer to try and read what’s left. 

“Well, I’ll look over the rest of this,” Mark says, sighing and sitting back in his chair. “I’ll take it with me when… I have to go to London for a bit, I’m sure you overheard.”

“Might have,” Oscar says, still trying to read the half-torn ink. 

Mark huffs in put-on annoyance. “Your spells are getting quite skillful,” he says, in lieu of scolding Oscar for eavesdropping, “I’ve heard good things about your wandwork from your other professors as well.”

Oscar ducks his head, still not looking up. 

“You’re doing well, kid. I told you you’d adapt.” 

“Thanks,” Oscar says quietly, finally stepping back from the desk. 

“Now get out,” Mark waves to the door, “I know you’ve got other classwork to do. I don’t want you slacking off while I’m gone.” 

Oscar nods, glancing at the book once more before walking away.

The Hidden Herbology Corridor isn’t that big of a deal, really. It’s not. Every year, a handful of students are brave enough to venture in, either because of a dare or through their own determination, and so far none of them have died or even been seriously injured. 

Or, well. Lando thinks no one’s died or been seriously injured. 

It’s not like he’s scared of some plants, though, come on. He’s a 5th-year, he can handle himself. He told Alex, Max, and Daniel that he would be in and out in, like, 15 minutes tops. All he has to do is find some weird, freakish plant and cut a bit off to show them he hadn’t just stood right here, at the bottom of the staircase, for the duration of the time. Easy. 

It’s just a bit dark in here, is all. 

And there’s some… something, at the edge of his vision, creeping. Writhing. He doesn’t know what kind of plant it is, and he honestly doesn’t want to know, but it seems to be keeping away from the torches that line the passageway. So, as long as he follows the torches, he should be fine. Right? 

Lando makes it a few paces into the tunnel when something in the air shifts. As he slows to a stop, a gust of wind rushes through the tunnel, ruffling his hair and causing the shadows to dance on the walls.

The torch nearest to him flickers a bit before it sputters out, plunging him into near-darkness. Behind him, he can hear something start to move across the stone floor.

Lando feels a jolt of fear, pulse hammering, as he sets off in a dead sprint towards the next light he can see, further down the tunnel. 

All around him, it sounds like the walls have come alive, the dark vines from before reaching out in the inky blackness towards him. His heart is in his throat, feet slamming against the cold stone floor. The light he can see is small, though, and it might be too far–

Lando nearly trips over a tendril, kicking it away desperately as he looks down, and when he looks up again the light is so much closer, and then–

He slams into something almost solid, screaming when he feels more of the weird plant wrap around his shoulders and creep up his ankles, pinning him in place. He thrashes, knocking something with his arm, and the bit of light that he’d been running toward goes out, the passage fully dark now.

“NO, NO,” he shouts, taking a deep breath in to try and cry for help. Something smells familiar, registering in the back of his brain, vaguely like the pinewood-scented cologne Oscar wears. 

“Ow, stop– Lando, it’s me, calm down–”

Lando freezes, turning towards the sound. 

Oscar.

“Yeah, perfect, just– fuck. Just, like, chill for a moment.”

“What the HELL,” Lando screeches, body shocked back into motion again as he feels the vines wind around his shins. The one around his shoulders releases, and he realizes belatedly that it wasn’t a vine at all, but Oscar’s arm, holding him steady. 

“Don’t yell, you’re right by my ear,” Oscar grumbles, and Lando can’t see his expression, but he can picture the way his face scrunches up in a grimace. “I dropped my wand–”

“What, help, it’s on my– leg, it’s–” Lando is not any quieter, struggling to tug one of his feet free to no avail. 

“Stop moving so much, you’re making it worse,” Oscar says, tense, and right on cue Lando trips and falls into him again, the vines lurching up to bind them together. 

“Shit, it’s– what are you even doing here?” Lando asks, grasping at anything to distract him from the way this mystery plant is certainly going to kill them both and no one will ever find their bodies. The two of them will just be a pile of bones by the time Alex, Max, and Daniel think to come check on him–

“Professor Hamilton asked me to grab something for him,” Oscar says calmly, “Do you have your wand?”

The way Oscar seems mostly unbothered by the plants that have nearly reached their waists is equal parts irritating and a lifeline to Lando, who feels like he’s being held underwater by the panic in his brain. Wand. Right. He shifts a bit and can feel it in the pocket of his left sleeve, but his other arm is pinned between their bodies. 

“I have it, yeah,” he gets out, trying to twist his wrist, but it’s too far up his sleeve. 

“Cast Lumos, Devil’s Snare avoids light,” Oscar instructs. He’s so close that Lando can feel the breath brushing against his ear when Oscar talks, and it’s another thing to focus on so he ignores the vines steadily climbing up them. His lower legs are fully encased now, they must be. He shivers. 

“It’s called Devil’s–”

“Lando, focus. Wand.”

“Can’t reach it,” Lando says urgently, “You cast it.”

“I dropped mine, didn’t you hear me?” Oscar hisses, shifting a bit against Lando's shoulder.

“Why are you saying that like it’s my fault?”

“It is your fault, you idiot, you knocked it out of my hand!”

Lando huffs, trying to tug his right arm free. “…Oscar?” he asks after a moment, voice smaller than he’d intended.

“Yes?” 

“Does it feel like it’s getting …tighter to you?”

“Yes, Lando,” Oscar sighs, “It’s trying to digest us.”

“WHAT?” Lando shrieks, doubling his efforts at getting his arm free.

“Calm down,” Oscar says, a hand coming up to grip Lando’s right shoulder, grounding him. “The more you struggle, the tighter it’ll get. Where’s your wand?”

Lando can’t get enough air in his lungs, the feeling of vines around his waist making it hard for him to think. “Left sleeve,” he says, biting back a sound that would be pathetically close to a whine. He really doesn’t want to die here, in this stupid corridor, with Oscar of all people. God, what a way to go. Dying to a plant. He’s glad Oscar can’t see him in the darkness, the way his eyes are probably glassy. 

The hand on Lando’s right shoulder shifts, skating across his shoulderblades to his left arm, and his breath catches, brain latching on to the warmth of Oscar’s body against his. Oscar reaches out, and Lando feels his hand trace down Lando’s arm, brushing against his wrist. Oscar hikes his sleeve up, pulling Lando’s wand from its pocket, and whispers “Got it,” as he pulls away. 

Lando feels very cold, suddenly, except for the places where Oscar’s still plastered against him. 

“Right, Cast Lumos then,” Lando croaks, trying to clear his throat. 

“Incendio,” Oscar casts instead, and Lando feels warmth wash all over him as a fireball shoots from the end of his wand, sailing straight to a torch on the far wall. 

“Oscar!” he screeches, shoving his roommate away as the vines quickly retreat, “I said Lumos, not burn my face off, you fucking–”

“You’re fine,” Oscar says, face looking redder than usual in the orange glow of the fire, “here.” He shoves Lando’s wand at his chest before looking around for his own. 

Lando is scrambling to latch onto anything other than how nice it’d felt when Oscar had but an arm around him. As he watches Oscar pick his wand up from the floor, he lights on the conversation he’d had with Carlos a few days earlier. “Your wand,” Lando says, gesturing vaguely.

Oscar glances up, looking lost. “What about it?”

“It’s different from the first day, right?” Lando says, taking a half-step forward to stare at it. Oscar holds it out for him to examine, patient. 

The wand is pale, a faint yellow in the light, and rod-straight, and Lando knows it’s different because he remembers the wand Oscar had lowered after throwing him off the platform the first week of classes. Dark brown, probably a walnut wood of some kind, and decidedly crooked, something Oscar’d had to counteract when he’d aimed. 

“…It is, yeah,” Oscar says slowly. He’s still holding it out, and Lando’s eyes track the slight divots in the handle – comfortable to hold, steady to aim, probably. 

“Dragon eat your first one?” Lando half-jokes, suddenly aware of the weird tension between them. He’s standing too close, probably, but it would be weird to step back now. Oscar hasn’t stepped back either, so it’s… fine. 

“What? No, that was earlier. I’d been borrowing one from Mark before I could get to Ollivander’s,” Oscar says practically, and Lando almost bristles at the correction – I know the dragon was before our duel, obviously – but he figures he would sound even more insane if he tried to explain that it was a joke. Oscar doesn’t seem like a joking sort of guy anyway. 

“Right,” Lando starts awkwardly, “…’course. Well. Good look with your… errand.”

“Right,” Oscar repeats, “Thanks. See you around.”

“Cheers.”

Oscar turns back to the depths of the tunnel, and Lando can hear him periodically lighting torches as he goes, whispering Incendios under his breath. 

Lando stays frozen in place for a moment, watching him go, before he snaps out of it and heads back where he came from. He lights the tip of his wand with Lumos and then holds it out in front of him like a knight with a sword, ready to vanquish any stray vines that are brave enough to peek out from the cracks in the walls. 

When Lando reaches the stairway again, natural light peeking through the doorway, he sighs in relief, booking it up two steps at a time and bursting through the doors.

Alex jumps up from where he was leaning against the wall, Max and Daniel both looking at him with open curiosity. “You were in there quite a while,” Max says, grinning, “find anything interesting?”

“No,” Lando says quickly. Too quickly, probably. But he was so focused on getting out that he didn’t grab any cuttings to show off, and the thought of telling them about his encounter with Oscar makes his throat close up, so he just says, “It’s boring down there. All dust ‘n stuff.”

“No plants?” Alex asks, frowning.

“Yeah, it’s the Hidden Herbology Corridor, isn’t it?” Daniel adds unhelpfully.

“Some, uhh–” what did Oscar call it? “…devil’s stare?”

“Devil’s Snare?” Max asks, brow furrowing.

“Right! That. Yeah, Devil’s Snare. Nasty stuff. But I didn’t want to touch it, so…” Lando trails off, showing his empty hands.

Daniel snorts. “Just take your word for it?” he offers, and Lando flushes, embarrassed. They probably don’t believe him, but, well– it’s still better than telling the truth. 

“Did it snare you?” Alex asks, tilting his head. “How are you even supposed to deal with that stuff?”

“It’s sensitive to–” Max starts, but Lando talks over him.

“Hates light,” Lando says quickly, desperate for some credibility, “Just had to cast In– er, Lumos, and it was fine!”

As they walk back to the castle, Lando lags behind and listens to his friends chatter about the weird plants on sale at Dogweed & Deathcap in Hogsmeade, and the different things Max and Alex have to buy for the animals at Brood & Peck, where they’re both interns. In the middle of Daniel’s story about a run-in with some wild Chinese Chomping Cabbages, Lando absently rubs at his wrist, and the memory of how Oscar’s hands had felt ghosting over him pops into his mind unbidden. Lando shoves the thought down, flushing. 

“You alright?” Alex says, slowing to match his pace. “You look a bit red.”

“I’m fine,” Lando says quickly, “Just want to get back inside. Bit cold out, autumn chills, you know.”

Alex nods uncertainty but lets it slide, and they catch up to the other two. 

Nico Rosberg hums to himself as he tends to the dittany in his greenhouse, diligently spraying each sprout with water as he makes his way around the table in the center of the room. It really is all about intention, no matter how much Lewis argues that the plants don’t care as long as they get nutrients and water. Nico’s always careful to be positive around them, especially when they’re young – complimenting new growth, whispering encouragement. His plants were always prettier than Lewis’s, anyways; leaves fuller and glossier, deeper colors in the petals.

Clearly, he’s in the right. Lewis should just admit–

“Excuse me,” a voice speaks right behind him, and Nico yelps in surprise, cursing loudly and then cursing again when he sees the delicate petals of his newest plant retreat back into the bud, scared. 

“What,” he says, whirling around, and sees a student carefully closing the trapdoor to the Hidden Herbology Corridor. 

“You’re not supposed to– where did you– you’re–” Nico starts and stops, trying to process. Did this kid come from the… he doesn’t look familiar, but he looks older, who… Nico prides himself on knowing nearly every student by name, as he teaches the first- and second-year Intro to Herbology courses. So anyone he doesn’t know is likely a transfer. 

“Are you the new 5th-year?” he asks after a moment, and the kid nods. He looks kind of familiar, like Nico had seen a photo of him somewhere. 

“Is Professor Hamilton around?” the kid asks simply, offering no explanation for the whole hidden-herbology-corridor-thing.

“What?” Nico says, still reeling. “Lewis is– um, no. He’s out right now. What do you need?”

“Can you give these to him? I have to get to class,” the kid says, holding out a handful of seed packets stamped with Lewis’s insignia, a symbol showing it’s a strain he developed. Nico’s looks fairly similar, actually, since they’d designed them together, back in school. When they used to be… friends. 

Nico considers saying no, not feeling too keen on interacting with Lewis unnecessarily, but that’s not fair to the student, either. He silently takes the seed packets, slipping them into a pocket. 

A few hours later, Nico hears the door to the Herbology wing open and close again. He checks the clock on the wall. That would be Lewis, back from his meeting. Nico sighs, waiting a carefully measured seven minutes – not so soon that he looks like he was waiting for him to get back, but not so long that Lewis is in the middle of another task – before strolling over to Lewis’s office just off the main greenhouse. 

“Delivery for you,” he says sarcastically, knocking on the doorframe. When Lewis looks up, he tosses the seed packets onto his desk. “Why would you send a new student into the corridor? Thought we closed it off for a reason, it’s practically overrun.”

“Needed some seeds,” Lewis says simply, turning back to his paperwork. His office is covered in flowers, mostly hyacinths. He’s taken a liking to hyacinths recently, for some reason. Nico hasn’t asked. He doesn’t want to hear the answer. “Besides,” Lewis continues, “it's not my fault it’s full of Devil’s Snare, now is it?”

Nico frowns. “I would say it’s 50/50. If I recall, I just provided the seeds. The whole ‘attempt at domestication’ thing was your idea.”

“You showed me the corridor in the first place,” Lewis points out, and it feels dangerously close to their old way of bantering. Casual. Comfortable. “That’s a bit more than 50% of the blame, I’d say.”

“But who actually planted it?” Nico retorts, allowing himself a small smile. Lewis still hasn’t looked up – there’s no harm to it. 

“Who forgot to re-enchant the torches?”

Nico huffs in annoyance, resolving to change the subject. “That new kid–”

“Oscar,” Lewis corrects.

“...Oscar. He’s Mark’s protégé, right?”

Lewis nods, flipping through more papers. “A family friend, I think.”

“Mark would kill you if I told him what you did,” Nico says, and it’s an empty threat, because sure, Mark would be pissed that Oscar was in a dangerous situation, but Lewis would probably find a way to pin it back on Nico in the end anyway. Like the torches argument all over again.

“Then don’t tell him,” Lewis hums.

Nico frowns, still leaning against the doorway for a moment. Something making him linger.

“For the record,” Lewis starts quietly, putting aside his papers and picking up the seed packets, flipping them over in his hands. He’s looking up, finally, like he wants Nico to believe him.

“Yes?”

“I sent him down there because I wanted to see if he could handle it. There’s some weird shit going on right now, both outside the castle and within it. You know that.”

“Sure,” Nico says; there’s always things happening. With so much magic concentrated in one place, for centuries, it won’t be normal. But he also knows what Lewis means. A dragon and trolls in the same month, and emergency meetings for any active Aurors nearby… “Wishing you didn’t retire from the Ministry?” he asks instead. 

Lewis sighs. “No, just… want the kids to be okay.” 

“What do you know?” Nico asks, stepping into the office fully, listening as the door closes softly behind him.

“What?”

“All of this… Loyalist business. Whispers about shifting the balance of power from those born with magic to those born without.” Lewis stays silent, so he adds, “I know you still have contacts.”

“I’m not Ministry anymore, Nico,” Lewis says tiredly, finally setting the seed packets down and not meeting Nico’s eyes, “Neither of us are.”

Nico scoffs. “That’s how it is, then?”

“That’s how it is.”

“See you around, Lew,” Nico says, biting the inside of his cheek to avoid another fight and turning to step out the door.

Lewis watches him go before sparing another glance at the seed packets on his desk. 

VT – Strain #44

Experimental. Use only in controlled environments. Highly Toxic. 

From the Lab of L.H. and N.R.

He hopes none of these kids will ever need it.