Chapter Text
Again, this first chapter isn’t a full-fledged fic yet—the actual story starts in Chapter Two.
This is something I’ve always wanted to write: a Hogwarts AU Boblena, where the Gryffindor golden girl falls in love with the mysterious Slytherin transfer student. I decided to set it in their fifth year, because fifteen feels like that very specific age—so raw, so turbulent, and so incredibly easy to fall in love. (Harry himself was fifteen when he had his first romance, after all.)
At that age, both body and mind are shifting wildly, fumbling through the blurry lines between friendship, love, and desire, and getting hopelessly confused by it all. Teenage Boblena would be unbearably adorable! The only problem is, I’m way too far past adolescence myself to capture that fluttery teenage feeling in writing. So for now, it’s more of a daydream than anything else.
Let’s sort out the character setup first. Starting with Yelena. I imagine teenage Yelena as a Gryffindor. She’s the kind of girl in her rebellious phase who would stand out even in a rebellious family—a “the only Gryffindor in a proud Slytherin household” type, much like Sirius Black himself.
Yelena’s mother and sister were both brilliant witches whose names were etched into Hogwarts history. Her mother, Melina, came from an old pure-blood family and was, of course, sorted into Slytherin. She was a natural overachiever—Prefect, then Head Girl, dazzlingly talented, the sort of student who crushed all competition around her.
And yet, just a few years after graduation, this genius witch shocked everyone by marrying a Muggle. Not just any Muggle, either—her husband Alexei wasn’t even British, but Soviet. Her family was outraged, declared she had disgraced their name, and disowned her completely. Melina couldn’t have cared less; she cut ties with them without hesitation, moved into the Muggle world with Alexei, and carried on with her scientific research there.
Years later, their eldest daughter, Natasha, entered Hogwarts, and like her mother, was sorted into Slytherin. She inherited the same brilliance—her beauty was the least of her many qualities. She became a Prefect, then Head Girl, graduated with top marks across the board in her N.E.W.T.s, and later married her Hogwarts classmate Bucky Barnes.
Now, which house Bucky belonged to is up for debate. Personally, I think “Thunderbolts-era” Bucky would make a solid Hufflepuff—steady, reliable, emotionally grounded. But if you follow the comics’ Buckynat canon, it makes perfect sense for both him and Natasha to have been Slytherins, a ruthless power couple sweeping through Hogwarts like a Hydra duo. But that’s not the point here, so let’s table it for now.
When it came time for Yelena’s Sorting, everyone expected her to follow in her mother’s and sister’s footsteps and bring further glory to Slytherin. But after some deliberation, the Sorting Hat placed her in Gryffindor—the bitter rivals of Slytherin! The whole Hall gasped, but Yelena only felt relief. She’d always hated being compared to Natasha and wanted nothing more than to forge her own path.
Yelena thrived in Gryffindor. By the fifth year, she had become one of the house’s most popular figures. She wasn’t a Prefect (too many broken rules for that), but she was the team’s most reliable Keeper, never missing a save, the backbone of Gryffindor’s Quidditch Cup victories. Brave, loyal, and sharp-tongued, she got along with almost everyone. But her closest friends, from day one, were always the same two people: John Walker, a fellow Gryffindor and one of the team’s Beaters, and Ava Starr from Ravenclaw, a Chaser on the Ravenclaw team. The three of them bickered constantly, but never seriously fought—except, of course, when Gryffindor and Ravenclaw clashed over the Quidditch Cup.
In the fifth year, Hogwarts did something unprecedented: it accepted a transfer student from Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the United States—a boy named Robert Reynolds. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Everyone speculated that he must have caused some terrible disaster at Ilvermorny and been shipped off to Hogwarts for reform. After all, Professor Dumbledore was here, and he could “fix” anyone.
So, let’s talk about Bob’s story. Like Yelena, Bob also came from a mixed family—his mother was a witch, and his father was a Muggle (or “No-Maj,” as the Americans say). Unfortunately, unlike Alexei, Bob’s father hated magic with a burning resentment. He couldn’t stand that his wife’s power overshadowed him, and he constantly tried to assert himself as the “head of the household” through violence. Years of domestic abuse and psychological torment shattered Bob’s mother’s mental health, crippling her magical abilities until she could no longer protect herself or her son.
The Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA, the American equivalent of the Ministry of Magic) eventually intervened, stripping Bob’s parents of custody and sending him to Ilvermorny for schooling.
But even then, it was too late. The damage had already been done. Bob’s warped upbringing had twisted his magic as well. Within him awakened a dark power called the Void, which erupted whenever he lost control, destroying everything around him. At first, the teachers at Ilvermorny thought it was a case of split personality, but soon they realized it was something much more dangerous—an advanced form of Dark magic, possibly even the makings of an Obscurial. Unable to contain the problem themselves, they turned to Hogwarts, the most renowned school of magic in the world.
And so, Bob traveled alone from Massachusetts to London, friendless and uprooted, thrust into a completely unfamiliar school filled with unfamiliar faces. He walked through the whispering crowd of the Great Hall and placed the Sorting Hat on his head. The Hat had barely touched his hair when it shouted, “Slytherin!”
Yet not a single clap rose from the Slytherin table. They only stared back at him with a mix of curiosity, shock, suspicion, and unease. Not an ounce of warmth.
(What a classic villain’s backstory opening…)
There was a reason the Sorting Hat placed Bob in Slytherin. He had all the traits of a true Slytherin—sharp intelligence, a deep hunger for power, a disregard for rules, but also a keen instinct for survival and the ability to conceal his ambition. And, of course, the dangerous Dark magic slumbering inside him.
But to the other students, none of this was obvious. All they saw was a shy, frail, and awkward half-blood American. Bob quickly became the target of bullying in Slytherin, picked on for no reason. He endured it silently. He didn’t want to repeat his mistakes at Ilvermorny; he couldn’t afford to lose control again. All he could do was grit his teeth and take it.
Okay, enough backstory. Finally, it’s time to talk about how our main characters first meet! (I can ramble forever, can’t I?) To pay homage to the vault scene from the movie, I decided to set the Thunderbolts’ first encounter in a similar narrow, dangerous place—so let’s borrow the setup from Philosopher’s Stone!
At the Start-of-Term Feast, Headmaster Dumbledore issued a very clear warning: no student was to enter the corridor on the third-floor—well, in this case, the fourth-floor—unless they wished to suffer “a most painful death.” But for Yelena, John, and Ava, a ban like that was basically an invitation. So, one night after lights-out, they snuck off together to explore the fourth floor.
They unlocked the door at the end of the forbidden corridor and found themselves face-to-face with a gigantic three-headed dog—and sprawled on the ground before it, already wounded from the beast’s attack, was Bob.
Naturally, he had been tricked into coming here by his bullies. Yelena, who could never ignore someone in trouble, immediately knelt beside him and tried to patch him up with her clumsy healing spells, but they weren’t enough. John urged them to leave at once—the dog might be chained, but its barking would soon bring Filch running, and then they’d all be in detention.
Yelena stayed crouched by Bob’s side, studying his injuries intently. Ava, arms crossed at the doorway, muttered, “Guys, I’m pretty sure I just heard Filch.”
John panicked. “Yelena, we’ve got to go! If we don’t leave now, we’re screwed!”
But Yelena didn’t budge. “I need to heal him, or we take him with us.”
John glanced at Bob, then snapped, “Forget him! He’s a Slytherin—that Slytherin.” He stressed the words, because they’d all heard the rumors about the infamous transfer student. “He’s not worth us getting detention!”
Yelena’s voice was calm, unwavering: “We’re taking him. Otherwise, I’m not leaving.”
She and John locked eyes. At last, John threw up his hands. “Fine! Fine! You’re insane, you know that? But I give up. I’ll carry him. You two better help me out!”
And that’s how the four of them first met. As they got to know each other better, Bob realized that although his first impression of John was that of a rude, hot-tempered jerk, deep down he wasn’t a bad guy at all—and, in fact, was a surprisingly reliable friend. Ava, too, turned out to be one of those people who pretended to be tough but was actually soft-hearted.
And Yelena—well, Yelena was everything.
Of course, Yelena suddenly being inseparable from a Slytherin—that Slytherin, no less—caused some raised eyebrows among the Gryffindors. Over in Slytherin, the reaction was even harsher. Bob might have been an outcast, but he was still technically one of them. To see him trailing around after a Gryffindor girl like some sort of loyal dog—especially that girl, the one who had repeatedly humiliated Slytherin on the Quidditch pitch—was nothing short of disgraceful.
But this was where Melina’s bloodline finally showed itself in Yelena: when it came to someone she cared about, her loyalty was unshakable. She couldn’t care less what other people thought. Everyone else’s opinions are rubbish. Of course, Yelena herself wasn’t sure yet if this counted as “liking” Bob in that way. All she knew was that her feelings toward him weren’t the same as what she felt for John or Ava. How exactly they were different, though, she hadn’t quite figured out.
Anyway, all of that is just a backdrop. What I actually wanted to write about is just one small story. I always prefer to use a small slice of life to open up into a larger world, and I try very hard to keep the timeline tight, ideally just a few days or a couple of weeks. This is mostly to restrain myself, because I can ramble endlessly; if I really let loose, I’d probably still be writing next year. So, one small story is enough.
And that small story is the Christmas Ball. When Bob found out that Yelena was staying at school over the Christmas holidays, he began wondering if he could ask her to go with him. Of course, there was nothing else implied by that—no, not as his date, not as a couple. Sure, sometimes partners at the Christmas Ball ended up looking like couples—or even actually becoming couples—but that had nothing to do with this! It was just a perfectly ordinary, normal, innocent invitation.
Still, the thought consumed him. Every day, he agonized over it until his head nearly exploded. Should he invite her formally? Or pretend to ask casually, as if it were nothing? Should he ask in front of John and Ava, or wait until they were alone? How should he even phrase it? What if Yelena said no? Would they still be friends after that? But what if she said yes? And if she did, what would that mean? And what if they went together, but then afterward stayed “just friends”—what then?
Yelena, naturally, noticed his odd behavior. She asked him point-blank what was going on, and before he could stop himself, Bob blurted out the whole thing about wanting to invite her to the Ball.
To his shock, Yelena only looked surprised and said, “Oh, but I’m going home for Christmas. I won’t be at the Ball.”
It turned out she’d only stayed at school for Quidditch practice, but she was still going home on Christmas Day. Bob, who of course had no home to return to, felt his entire world collapse in an instant.
Then Yelena said, “Why don’t you come spend Christmas with me? I’ll tell my Head of House—it’ll be fine.”
Just like that, Bob felt like the sun had risen again. But almost immediately, a new worry crept in, and he asked her nervously, “Do you think your family will even accept me?”
Yelena rolled her eyes. “What are you on about? My whole family’s Slytherin. They’ll love hearing about what it’s like in Slytherin. Oh, except my dad, but he’ll definitely want to hear about America. Just… maybe don’t talk about the good parts. He’s Soviet.”
And with that, Bob finally relaxed.
The news reached the Belova household by owl post at record speed. Alexei, upon hearing that his youngest daughter was bringing home a boy her age to meet the family, was deeply distressed. Stirring a pot of borscht, he muttered anxiously, “Isn’t she far too young to be dating?!” Melina didn’t bother answering, calmly directing a floating knife with her wand to carve the turkey. Natasha, sitting nearby, thought the whole fuss was ridiculous—she herself had started dating well before fifteen. Deciding to be her sister’s advocate, she told Alexei, “Dad, you’re such a fossil. And don’t you dare pull that face when he gets here. If you embarrass Yelena in front of her classmate, she’ll never forgive you.”
…And so Bob experienced the happiest Christmas he had ever known. For the first time in his memory, he felt like part of a real family—accepted, cared for, pulled into warm embraces with a hand ruffling his hair. If he could stay in that fairy-tale house forever, he believed the Void inside him would never consume him. He would be a good person. He would be a saint.
But if we stick to the Philosopher’s Stone timeline, then three years later Voldemort would rise again, and the British Isles would be plunged into blood and darkness. What would Bob do then? No doubt he’d be courted by the villains—just like in Avengers 5.
And if there were no Voldemort… well, then this would just be an ordinary fluffy fic. Graduation, jobs, dating, marriage, healing the Void, making peace with the past, and sending the next generation off to Hogwarts.
[TBC]
The link to the original Chinese version on LOFTER:
https://yinyuan4869.lofter.com/post/1d08fcc7_2bed8661a?incantation=rzdGJNQkD7zI