Chapter Text
"Accio Textbooks!"
Sollux looked up as a thousand page tome nearly missed his head, zooming into the hands of a stressed-out green clad Slytherin his age and height who already had six other books to contend with. He hissed involuntarily when another followed suit, smacking him on the back of the head. Textbooks. Plural.
The girl in question had curly horns to match her hair, which frizzed out in all directions. Sollux idly wondered if she kept the rest of her stuff in that haze of ringlets. He didn't care if it was mean; after all, she was a Slytherin. Everyone seemed to have forgotten that snakes were mean as a blistering summer's day, and it was ridiculous as the Seven-Fanged Kiks in the Owlery to even keep such a racist House going.
Sollux was decidedly not in a good mood after losing a perfect score on his Charms exam due to misreading a question (what kind of Ravenclaw misreads a question? One focusing his life on Muggle technology, according to his classmate Kanaya), and the abuse this serpentine frizzy haired GIRL had just unwittingly inflicted was the cherry on the tart.
"Can you watch yourself?!" He snapped, and the girl's eyes widened in (obviously falsified) shock.
"Did I hit you?"
"No, I regularly enjoy screaming in a library."
Ms. Condescension glared at them briefly, but she quickly went off to attend to some idiot who evidently did enjoy screaming in a library. Sollux couldn't see the perpetrator over the bookcases, so the thought of having outgrown a peer did momentarily calm him enough to say "Sorry. That hurt."
"I am the sorry one. Merlin's beard, I had no idea that the spell worked so fast!"
"Was it your first time?"
She nodded. Sollux thought back to the spell and was grudgingly impressed. That was at least a fourth year spell, if anything. He refused to give Emerald Robes the satisfaction, so he merely grunted. She seemed to take it as a compliment, and she next had the audacity to sit down next to him. In the spot his laptop's second hard drive (Internet had recently made it into the mainstream Wizarding World for education and sales purposes, but Sollux had had his for years) usually occupied, now sat a girl who was...uh oh, she was almost pretty. Sollux kept his eye determinedly fixed on her emerald collar so he wouldn't forget her House as she spoke.
"My name is Aradia! I couldn't help but notice you are coding."
"You know what coding is." Sollux stated flatly.
"Of course!" Aradia whispered. "I am half blood! My mother is a hacker."
"A half blood Slytherin?" Sollux snorted with derision, closing out the program. He shut his laptop and 'Aradia'seemed offended.
"Do you hate Slytherins or something?"
"Or something."
"Why?"
Sollux ignored her, wiping his glasses on his shirt. She repeated herself, this time tapping his head with her wand. All her books tumbled to the floor. Sollux waited a second before bowing to etiquette, grubbing on the floor like an idiot. "Because you are all selfish and self-contained, as well as prejudiced."
"Isn't that a bit hypocritical?" Aradia snatched her books from Sollux's reach, jumping to her feet. Her wand toppled onto the rug.
"Wait-your wand..." Sollux picked it up. It was heavier than he expected for such a thin one. His own was almost twice that length.
"I don't wand your stupid help!"
They both stared at each other, and Sollux began to laugh.
"It isn't even funny. Just a slip of the tongue."Aradia began giggling.
"I'll slip you some tongue." Sollux muttered, but she was close enough that she blushed at that. Sollux did as well. "My brother says it."
"I'm glad I befriended you and not your brother." Aradia began to turn. Sollux stopped her.
"We're friends?"
"Well, we are both experiencing the lovely bonding moment of watching a lunatic get kicked out." The shouting in the distance had grown steadily louder, and Ms. Condescension had a boy levitating in the air by his ankle. Sollux was unsure if that was legal, but Aradia was grinning. Sollux smiled back, and they laughed as the short horns kid wailed his way out of the library. He sure knew a lot of curse words for eleven. Sollux was almost jealous.
She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he nearly gagged on her hair. It was spilling into his mouth, and he pushed her sideways gently.
"Your hair is an animal."
"Yeah, I call her Lusus."
The name was so ridiculous Sollux burst out cackling again, knocking over the books in the shelf behind him. The librarian might Killing curse him now. He froze, and everyone was staring.
"She's coming back!" Aradia whispered, jarring him out of his shock.
"On the count of two."
"Three."
"TWO." Sollux insisted, and by TWO they were scurrying into a side corrider. The Condescension's scream of rage was piercing the air like a Muggle smoke alarm. That's when Aradia got hungry.
They ended up going to the Great Hall together by way of a back staircase Aradia had never known about before. He walked her to the Slytherins before sitting back down next to the Maryam twins to much catcalling. Second month of Hogwarts and he was a pariah.
Sitting at House segregated tables, Sollux realized he had broken a cardinal rule. Making an actual friend was going to get in the way of straight O's come fifth year.
Also, why was she winking?
Damned Slytherins.