Chapter Text
The first few weeks back to school are some of the worst, that’s what a lot of the kids at Auradon Prep agree on. Which makes sense, they all have to pack up, leave their kingdoms, and spend nine—almost—straight months at school.
But Jennie’s life has never been like that. Well, she obviously goes to school, but her family doesn’t exactly stay in one place for long, plus she doesn’t exactly have a room to pack up. No, she mostly has a lamp that she has to keep up with and that’s where it ends.
Where was she? Oh, yeah, first few weeks back to school.
Well, actually she’s being yelled at by her sister while flying the magic carpet.
“Jennie—! Jennie, for fuck’s sake, slow down!” Jordan yells as they get closer to the front entrance to the dormitory building, and if you were to ask Jennie, she’d say her sister is being dramatic.
“It’s fine, I’ve got it handled,” Jennie retorts, though the closer they get to the ground, the less she believes herself. But Jordan should have some faith in her for Allah’s sake, she hasn’t crashed the carpet yet…heavy on the "yet.”
Today seems to be the younger girl’s lucky day, though, as the carpet comes to a screeching halt a few feet above the ground, almost launching both genies forward. Jennie can feel Jordan’s eyes boring into her skull before she even looks over at her.
She hops off the carpet immediately and unties her skateboard off of the back, not feeling like having her older sister insult her flying for the fourth time this month. Jordan didn’t even pass her carpet license test the first twelve times, who is she to judge?
Jordan sighs in frustration as she centers herself in the middle of the carpet, “You good to go?”
Jennie holds up her skateboard and taps the lamp hooked onto her belt, nodding, “Yep, see you Friday?”
“Maybe if you go the speed limit,” the older girl retorts, beginning to fly off.
“Why don’t you trust me?” Jennie calls out with a smile as she watches her sister leave before turning and dropping her skateboard down, placing one foot on the board and pushing off with the other.
Jennie zooms through the halls, dodging past some people standing outside their dorms and waving to those she recognizes. If you were to ask her, skateboards and flying carpets are pretty much one in the same, you lean the way you wanna go and you’re good. Jordan doesn’t really agree with the concept, but Jennie rarely agrees with Jordan, so they’re even.
Jennie skids to a stop once she reaches her dorm, happy that it’s on the first floor this year. Last year, her dorm was on the third floor and Fairy Godmother did not take kindly to Jennie trying to skateboard down the stairs. But you can’t blame a genie for her transportation preferences.
She opens the door and immediately spots Meri hanging stuff up around her side of the room, completely zoned in and not noticing her friend in the doorway.
“Did you have a nice summer?” Jennie asks, making her presence known as she lightly kicks the door shut, watching the young fairy jump out of her thoughts and turn around.
“It’s never funny when you do that,” Meri reprimands as Jennie places her skateboard down against the wall, walking over and hugging her friend, “but yes, my summer was fine. I’d ask about yours, but…”
Jennie pulls back, rolling her eyes and walking over to her side of the room, “But it’s almost always the same, plus my sister makes sure to post about everything on her blog?” She guesses rhetorically, unhooking her lamp from her belt and placing it down on the nightstand next to her bed. To be factual, her lamp is more of her room than her dorm is, but it doesn’t count according to the school and she likes rooming with Meri anyways.
“Yeah, that,” Meri replies, taking a seat on her bed and awkwardly fiddling with her fingers.
It’s not that Jennie doesn’t like how her summers are, her dad takes her and Jordan pretty much across the world every time. It’s fun, but…it’s grown so repetitive in Jennie’s eyes. She feels like she’s seen so much throughout her life, but she’s walked away with nothing from each place. Jordan’s just been telling her she’s just being dramatic and going through her ”angsty teen phase.”
“It’s whatever, a genie does what a genie is told to.” Jennie brushes off, hoping to not make the first day back at school all depressing, or whatever you can call her family situation. She turns and glances behind her friend, spotting some of her full bags, “You need any help unpacking the rest of your stuff?”
Meri seems happy with the shift in subject, standing up and walking over to her bags, “Would you mind?”
“Your wish is my command,” Jennie jokes, walking over to help.
~~~~
Jennie always seems to underestimate the amount of things Meri brings to school, not that the girl brings her entire room, but it’s not like she packs light either. But Jennie supposes that she can’t say much, all she brings is her lamp and skateboard and everything else she needs is in her lamp.
Does that technically mean she packs more than Meri?
“Alright then, I think that’s everything!” Meri says with a smile as they finish putting all of her books away, most of which are books on spells and enchantments. Jennie’s gotta hand it to her friend, she really makes sure to stay on top of her magic lessons—the same sort of lessons Jennie usually tries to avoid.
“Yep, now can we call it a night?” Jennie asks before pointing out the window. “Because the sun definitely has.”
Meri nods, looking out the window and watching as the sun fully dips below the surface, “Yeah, I’ll get ready for bed…” Meri trails off, her eyes roaming over to Jennie’s completely bare side of the dorm, “are you sure you don’t wanna decorate your side of the dorm?”
Jennie sighs and rolls her eyes, “Meri, you and I both know that it’s unnecessary. I sleep in my lamp, and guess what?”
”It’s fully decorated,” the girls say in unison, having gone over this multiple times during their years of friendship.
“Fine, fine,” Meri gives in quickly, walking over to her dresser and pulling out a matching pajama set. She’s learned over time that it’s better to just not argue with Jennie on this, they did once and it lasted three hours.
The fairy walks into the bathroom, muttering under her breath about Jennie’s stubbornness, causing the other girl to scoff and head over to her lamp. She looks at it and snaps her fingers, a puff of gold smoke enveloping her before she opens her eyes, now in her actual room.
Jennie whizzes around her lamp, getting ready for bed. Halfway through brushing her teeth though, she hears the unmistakable ringing of her phone—the unmistakable ringtone assigned to her father’s contact, to be more specific—and she swears internally.
Jennie loves to hear from her father, but he’s always a bit…uh, stern at the start of every school year—mainly regarding Jennie and her magic. Nonetheless, she quickly finishes brushing her teeth and answers the phone before her dad ends up sending five texts.
“Hey, Dad,” Jennie says, awaiting her dad’s energetic voice on the other end. Sometimes too energetic if you were to ask her, but that’s unimportant.
“My little girl, hey!” Her dad exclaims from the other side of the line. “How was unpacking—well, helping Meri unpack?”
“It, uh, was fine.” Jennie jumps down onto her bed, feeling a bit confused about the way this call is going. “Is that all you called to ask about?”
The girl doubts it, but she’d rather it be that than the annual magic conversation.
“Of course it isn’t.” He responds and Jennie accepts her fate. She could likely end up being on the phone for an hour or more, which is way too long when she just wants to sleep. “I want to ask you if you’ve checked your class list, I’ve put a few extra magic classes onto your schedule this year, right next to a Carpet’s Ed class after Jordan told me about this afternoon.”
Fucking snitch, Jennie didn’t even crash it.
“Are we really taking the word of someone who failed to get her license twelve times?” She mutters, really pissed at her sister and her loud ass mouth.
“Well, kid, she’s managed to get her magic under control, can you say the same for yourself?”
That hits Jennie like a punch right in the gut, she doesn’t really remember the last time her dad talked about her lack of control that harshly. She can feel both anger bubbling in her and tears pricking her eyes, her magic starting to spark around her like small fireworks.
Her dad sighs, seeming to sense Jennie’s emotions through the phone, “Just…make sure to be on time to those new classes.”
“Yeah— yeah, I will.” Jennie breathes, trying to get her stupid magic under control before it breaks something.
“I love you, sweetie.”
“Love you, too, Dad.” She hangs up the phone, tossing it somewhere onto her nightstand, the fireworks around her starting to fizzle out.
She goes to sleep before they can come back tenfold.
~~~~
The first few days of classes are relatively normal, if everyone ignores the fact that Cinderella and the Queen of Hearts were held hostage for a good few days. But humongous danger every other year is somewhat normal to Auradon at this point.
So, Jennie’s skating through the halls without a care in the world as Meri keeps up with her. Years of friendship really solidifies putting up with somebody, mainly Meri putting up with Jennie as they pass countless of teachers telling Jennie to walk to class if she doesn’t want detention.
“One day, they’re going to go through with that threat,” Meri tells Jennie.
“And that will be the day where I start to take them seriously.” Jennie gives a cocky smile, watching her friend internally question why she’s been putting up with this for years. “C’mon, I’ve been skating since I was, like, nine years old. I know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, well— wait, my locker,” Meri walks towards it, leaving Jennie to head to class on her own. Jennie scoffs, her eyes staying on her friend as she skates past her.
“Wow, ditching me? My heart weeps, Mer,” Jennie jokingly calls out, and Meri looks back over to the genie as she opens her locker and switches books, rolling her eyes in amusement.
“You’ll live—” Meri stops her sentence abruptly, looking ahead of Jennie with wide eyes, “Jen, watch out!”
Jennie looks at the fairy in confusion before turning her head to look in front of her, and suddenly she really understands the term: ”my life flashed before my eyes” as she realizes she’s less than five seconds away from crashing into somebody.
Maybe she should’ve listened to the school faculty.
“Shit, shit, shit—” Jennie mutters as she tries to swerve out of the way, but it’s futile, she’s gonna crash into this person and get detention. Zero doubt about it, nothing can save her—or the other person, obviously.
Except for her stupid, fucking genie magic reflexes.
She does hit whoever it is, but gold smoke surrounds them as Jennie freezes them right before they both hit the floor. To be entirely honest, Jennie wasn’t paying any attention to who she was gonna crash into, she was more focused on trying to avoid that ending, but then the smoke clears up and she finds herself staring right at Chloe Charming.
…Great, she just had to crash into one of the most rule-following students at Auradon Prep. She’s so fucking screwed, she’s gonna be given detention for the rest of high school if Chloe has anything to say about it.
“Oh, my gods!” Jennie hears Meri shout from behind her, but she can’t tell if it’s said out of horror because Jennie actually crashed into someone, or if it’s said out of relief that Jennie was able to stop the crash from being significantly worse.
Either way, Jennie and Chloe are still frozen, inches apart from one another, because since when does Jennie’s magic ever listen to her when she wants it to? Never. Never is the answer.
Chloe stares back with a mixture of shock and fear in her eyes, clearly not having expected everything that just happened, and Jennie can’t blame her. This has to be worse than simply just falling to the ground—if they did, at least Jennie would’ve had the time to run before Chloe could realize it was her and report it to a teacher.
Jennie feels someone yanking on her arm, likely Meri, attempting to move her into a safer position for whenever Jennie’s magic decides to wear off and her and Chloe are unfrozen. But, alas, nothing’s ever that easy, and Jennie and Chloe are truly frozen in mid-air.
The universe must be having so much fun laughing in Jennie’s face.
“Crap, hang on, I’ll go get someone!” Meri reassures as she sprints—almost flies—away, someone else following behind her.
“For hearts’ sake, can you not just use your own magic?” The other person asks worriedly, chasing after Meri. The question would normally make Jennie laugh if the circumstances weren’t what they are.
So, now she’s left here, staring at Chloe as Chloe stares back at her. There’s something different looking in Chloe’s eyes, something Jennie can’t quite give a name to—her usual sky blue curls are different too, they’re darker. It’s just now that Jennie is also realizing how many gems Chloe decorates her eyes and baby hairs with, something the genie’s been too busy zooming around on her skateboard to spot before.
You really notice a lot about a person when you’re forced to look at them at this distance, or lack thereof.
After a minute or two of…blatantly awkward staring, Meri comes back with one of her and Jennie’s magic teachers who swiftly fixes the young genie’s stupid mistake, unfreezing both girls and making sure they don’t fall over.
Meri hands Jennie her skateboard—which likely rolled a long way down the hall—with a meek smile, knowing that her friend is a hundred percent about to be lectured, and might likely lose said skateboard for the rest of the school year.
“Thanks,” Jennie whispers to Meri before finally meeting her teacher, Mr. M’s, disappointed gaze. He’s one of the ones that always tells Jennie she should focus more on her magic so she can live up to her father, so it’s safe to say that she hates this man. She can’t exactly tell him to fuck off, though, if she doesn’t want even worse consequences for what just happened.
“Jennie,” Mr. M starts, his disappointment also seeping into his annoying voice, “I thought we went over skating through the halls.”
“Yeah, I know—” Jennie tries to respond, but is very quickly cut off.
“Not to mention getting your magic under control,” he feels the need to remind her, as if she doesn’t hear it in all of her other magic-related classes, “I mean, both of these things just caused you to fully crash into another student!”
He gestures over to Chloe and Jennie follows his line of sight, spotting Pink checking everywhere on Chloe to make sure she isn’t hurt in any way. She must’ve been the one chasing after Meri a bit ago.
“It’s fine,” Chloe assures with a smile, taking her arm out of Pink’s worried hold, “I’m fine, there wasn’t any harm done.”
And, just like that, Chloe is walking off without another word, leaving Jennie in absolute disbelief. Last year, Chloe Charming was always willing to turn a kid over to a teacher for breaking a rule, and now she just…told a teacher to forget that Jennie full on crashed into her? What the fuck did Jennie’s magic do to the girl?
And how can she get it to do it to every other person in her life?
Jennie shakes herself out of that thought and turns her head to look at Mr. M again, who looks equally as shocked as she is about what just happened, and she can definitely use that to her advantage.
“No complaining parties,” Jennie states, causing Mr. M to turn his confusion over to her words, “so, I guess I'm free to go?”
He stares at Jennie, his expression not changing and she can only guess that this man has been given insane whiplash. She’s not gonna test her limits any further than that and just starts walking away, Meri following behind in silence—probably also confused.
They’re halfway down the hall when Meri finally says something, “Since when does Chloe Charming let things like that go?”
“Don’t know,” Jennie answers in total honesty, her mind wandering back to the different look in Chloe’s eyes, "I’ll just consider it a lucky break.”
Meri nods as they continue walking to class—which, by the way, Jennie can now confirm that walking is way overrated and that using a skateboard is a hell of a lot more efficient.
…But maybe she’ll walk by Swords and Shields practice later to apologize to Chloe.