Chapter Text
His hair, long in spite of his father’s complaints, was drenched and sticking to his glasses. As a matter of fact, there was not an inch of his body that was dry and safe from the torrential rain that seemed to afflict Oxford at this time of the year. His dad had dropped him off at London Euston railway station and what followed was a painful 5-hour journey on a packed train that kept getting delayed. For a country that was infamous for its weather, you would expect it to be more prepared for the rain.
Rupert stood in front of Magdalen College, part of him giddy because of this newfound freedom away from his family, part of him revolted at the prospect of taking part of the utterly dull and rigid environment he was about to enter. But the stone building did seem more welcoming than the cold rain, so he stepped inside, his shoes immediately squeaking on the stone floors, making his presence known to the woman behind the desk who glared at him like a clown who had lost his way to the circus.
“Name?” she asked dryly.
“Giles, Ripp… Rupert”, he replied, taking off his glasses to unsuccessfully clean them on his wet shirt, making the glass even foggier.
“Right, here are your keys, breakfast is served from 0600 until 0730, dinner will be 1830 to 2000; you miss those times, you deal with your empty stomach. You leave your dirty bedding outside of your door every Friday morning and your personal laundry on Saturday mornings before 0800. Is that understood?” she recited the instructions in a monotone voice that made it difficult to follow, but he could tell she would not accept a no as an answer so he nodded, picked up his keys and left through one of the corridors before the woman could tell him he was going in the wrong direction.
Turns out, he was indeed going in the wrong direction. It took him half an hour to locate the correct wing of the building where his dormitory was and an extra ten minutes to find the door to his room. When he tried turning the key on the lock, he realised the door was already unlocked and pushed it open. What stood in front of him was chaos in the flesh, as if a suitcase had exploded, covering every available surface with its contents. Two beds stood on opposite sides of the room, and on one of them, lying down with his muddy boots on the duvet, was a young boy.
“Oh, hi there” the boy said without looking up from the magazine he was reading.
“Erm hi…” Rupert was still in the process of taking in his surroundings, overwhelmed by the smell of incense and the cacophony of colours that covered the floor. He stepped on a silk shirt as he tried to find any available ground to navigate his way to the other side of the room and almost fell face first against the floor.
“Oh yeah, sorry about the mess, I thought I’d deal with it but then I got bored”.
“I can definitely tell”, he removed the underwear that was covering what would be his bed and put his travel bag on it. Started painstakingly taking out his perfectly folded clothes and putting them in what he assumed where his assigned drawers, that is, the only ones that didn’t have stuff pouring over.
“Look at you, already settling in, you’re going to fit right in with the other posh boys out there”, the boy had a mocking tone that sounded like nails scratching on a blackboard and Rupert could feel a warmth growing in his chest, like an animal clawing from the inside, begging him to let him eat this petty little brat.
“Sorry, I’m just not used to having a maid picking up after me”, this was, in fact, a lie, but that was not something Rupert was going to admit; his relationship with his upper middle-class upbringing was complicated enough as it was.
“Well, well, well, the fresh boy has a sharp tongue. Name is Rayne, Ethan Rayne” he said this like he was Sean Connory.
“Ripper Giles”.
“My oh my, Ripper, that’s an unusual name, isn’t it?”
“Not the name my mother gave me at birth, but the one she gave me after I started breaking things around the house”.
“You worked hard for it I see”.
“I’m surprised you even know what hard work means”.
“Oh please, like your polished hands have ever done any manual labour”, Ethan smiled, he was enjoying the banter and was glad to have found someone who could come up with witty answers instead of snobbishly moving on.
Rupert slammed the last drawer closed and sighed.
“Listen, as much as I enjoy whatever this is, I need to have a shower and would love to be able to lie in bed if your majesty can be arsed to remove his clutter off it”.
Before Ethan could muster a reply, he left the bedroom in search for the common bathrooms. It took him 10 minutes to find them, which was enough for his inside fire to calm down to a small flame.
He turned on the shower and removed the layers of cold and wet clothes he’d been wearing all day, feeling like he had to peel them off his skin. Once under the water, he slowly started rising the temperature, until the pounding of his heart slowed down. Breathe in. Breathe out. Lashing out is not what he wanted to do on his first day. He didn’t want to be here, but he was also smart enough to know he needed to know how to play his cards if he wanted to get his own way.
***
Back in the bedroom, in the “uncomfort” of his bed, with sheets that were rough to the touch and a mattress that could be used as a desk, he finally allowed himself to relax. He pulled out Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches from his leather messenger bag and started reading.
“What you got there?” Ethan’s voice sounded extremely close, and as he looked up, he was he was at the foot of his bed.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, can you mind your own fucking business for five minutes?”
“Come on, share your knowledge with me, we’re in Oxford, we’re hungry for knowledge and shit”.
“And shit”, he scoffed, but there was part of him that wanted to share this with someone.
His father had not been happy when Rupert started showing an interest in witchcraft. Apparently, as a Watcher, his sole purpose would be to do admin until the day he died of boredom. Now allowed to kill vampires, do spells, or choose his own future, he was put into this ridiculous box that meant everything was planned out for him, including his hobbies, his personal life, and his studies.
“Actually… How much do you know about Wicca?”
“That it’s a bunch of rubbish” Ethan scoffed.
“What if I told you, it is not?”
“Prove it”.
This is what he wanted. A dare. A permission to show what he’d learned in his bedroom, in the small hours when everyone else was fast asleep.
“Bring that to me”, he pointed at a bright orange scarf that was precariously hanging from the end of Ethan’s suitcase.
“That’s not magic, that’s just being a bossy cunt”.
“Alright, then I don’t have to show you shit”.
Ethan rolled his eyes but still picked up the scarf and dropped it in front of Rupert. He crossed his legs and invited Ethan to sit in front of him.
Ruper closed his eyes and concentrated on the presence of the horrendous garment that lied in front of him. Slowly, he felt the air around him engulf his body. He felt light, like gravity was not pulling him down anymore, and that’s when he opened his eyes. The scarf was floating on top of their heads, moving as if an invisible breeze was playing with it.
“Oh, come on this is just a stupid circus trick, what are you using? Some thread or something?” Ethan said and snatched the scarf off the air.
“Ignis incende” Rupert said with a smirk, and the scarf set on fire in Ethan’s hands, its material burning to ashes that scattered at his feet.
Ethan was too stunned to speak. No, he didn’t see that coming, he had no idea how he had done it either, but above all, that was his favourite scarf and now it was a pile of dust on the floor.
“That’ll hopefully teach you to put things away” Rupert said, and he picked up his book and got back to his reading.
“Do you know how expensive that was? And you just… POOF?”
“Poof”, Rupert repeated with a nod “I believe that’s the correct term indeed”.
“Teach me”.
“What?”
“Teach me how to do that”
“You don’t seem the patient type, and neither am I, I’ll end up setting you on fire the moment you do something wrong”.
“So what? You just wanted to show off?”
“I thought that was obvious”.
That night, while Rupert was asleep, a pair of hands reached out to the book on his bedside table. Tiptoeing around the mess he had refused to clear up, Ethan left the bedroom and sat in the corridor reading until the first rays of cloud covered sunlight filtered through the windows of the dorm.